Mercy West
by TheVeryLastValkyrie
Summary: AU. For private investigator April Kepner and her cop best friend Jackson Avery, crimes of aggression are easy enough to solve. Crimes of passion, however – say, the kind of passion that happens one night when there's blood and rainwater on the floor – are a bit more tricky.
1. Goodness Gracious

**1. Goodness Gracious  
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Hi, I'm – no.

I'm a kickass – no.

Did somebody call for a – no.

My name is April Kepner, and I used to be a police officer. People leave jobs for different reasons, especially jobs like that, but Charles Percy and Reed Adamson didn't have a choice. A man with a gun took their choice away while they were still rookies, and I took it…badly. I _couldn't_ take it. Jackson was different. Jackson is my best friend: we graduated in the same class, we drink beer together (sometimes cocoa), and occasionally we bake together (meaning I bake, he eats). Jackson took it, Charles and Reed, and he stuck with it, and now he shares a patch with Alex Karev, also from our class. They even have rookies of their own now, although rumour has it Alex offered Jackson a hundred dollars for a trade: Stephanie Edwards for Jo Wilson, who broke Officer Myers' nose when he called her trailer trash. Alex calls her Hobo Jo, but the two of them get along just fine – maybe better than fine.

I'm a private investigator now, working out of the fourth floor of a ten storey office block in Seattle. On the seventh floor is Grey, Shepherd and Yang, the firm set up by legal eagle Ellis Grey. Derek Shepherd had been made senior partner by the time she passed away, and the first thing he did was to hire Meredith Grey, Ellis' daughter, and high flier Cristina Yang, straight out of law school. Cristina is crabby, antisocial and brilliant, and Meredith is crabby, antisocial, brilliant and in love with Derek, who is charming and brilliant (I might have had a teeny-tiny crush, but even Derek Shepherd's clients have a teeny-tiny crush on Derek Shepherd, so it's okay). We all sometimes run into one another at the bar across the street.

That bar is run by a woman you don't want to get on the wrong side of. Her nickname is 'the bone breaker', but I have no idea why, since Callie's more likely to break bread with you than break your face. She has a smart mouth and a sympathetic ear, but I'm better friends with her wife, Arizona. Arizona, a paediatrician, works longer hours than her practice allows, does more for her patients than their insurance allows and is somehow always home on time to kiss baby Sofia goodnight. Sofia's father is Jackson's boss, Captain Mark Sloan (in a city this big, you'd think there'd be more degrees of separation). He's dating Meredith's sister Lexie, who used to date Jackson, who's convinced I prowl the streets looking for trouble every night I don't spend watching TV with him, trying to get his icky boy feet off my end of the couch.

In summary, Jackson is my best friend, Jesus reigns in my heart, and there's probably something for you in the fridge.


	2. Pick Yourself Up

**2. Pick Yourself Up**

I wake up with my face pressed deep into the couch cushion and yes, it is wet, so yes, I did drool on the beautiful new cushion on my beautiful new couch. The leather is super soft, cream-coloured and totally impractical. The cushions are mint green with birds and flowers stencilled on them. I love my new couch, but I fully intended to make it to bed last night. Looking around me, I realise why I didn't: a manila file is still clenched in my left hand, and the coffee table is strewn with papers and popcorn. I'm guessing I tried to eat, watch a movie and work at the same time.

Solving cases is easy. Wrapping them up is deadly difficult.

"Should've been a doctor," I tell myself, blinking sleep out of my eyes as I move the necessary ninety degrees to a sitting position. My head swirls for a moment or two, and then I'm up and on my way to the kitchen. "Yep, should've been a doctor," I repeat as I rattle the cereal box. Only three whole-wheat squares tumble out into the bowl, and I glare at them. Thank God the coffee machine is on a timer, so I never have to worry about remembering to worry about that.

I'm neurotic, and most of the time, I'm okay with being neurotic. I own my neuroticism. When I'm working a case, I work like a demon, and I clean like a demon, and I cook enough one pot wonders to fill my freezer and the freezers of all my friends. When I've closed a case, I eat enough junk food to make up for all the evenings I spent hunched over my computer instead of eating a hot meal at my kitchen table or lazing in a hot bath, and I sleep like the dead to make up for all the sleepless nights I spent tailing cars or writing my report, and I forget to buy groceries.

I imagine if I were a doctor, even if I didn't have time to visit the grocery store, I would have enough money to pay someone to go for me.

It's a little after seven, and the world outside my window is as quiet and calm as it ever is on a street in Seattle. I drink my coffee and watch the sun struggle up through the grey clouds which always hang over the city, and then I go to bathroom and program my toothbrush for two minutes of strenuous – but not too strenuous, enamel wear is a serious problem – of brushing. It beeps each time it wants me to move on to a new section of my mouth, and I obey, staring at my reflection in the mirror, at the damage one night face-first in my beautiful new couch has done. Last night's mascara has begun to slide, although it did its duty bravely all day yesterday. My skin is pink, flushed and creased.

I'm not only neurotic, now my skin is creased too.

My hands are on autopilot, pulling my hair up into a ponytail when I pause. I purse my lips and try to remember the day: Tuesday. No, I won't wear my hair in a ponytail on a Tuesday, because Jackson is more likely to drop by on a Tuesday, and every time I wear my hair in a ponytail, his lips twitch. What's so wrong with ponytails? They keep your hair out of your eyes, they're hygienic, and just because he doesn't even have a half inch of hair to call his own doesn't mean he has any rights over mine. To be fair, the reason he doesn't have a half inch of hair is because his grows out curly, and that probably makes my lips twitch too, and I bet he notices mine like I notice his. Curly hair also doesn't help his pretty boy looks, which is why he carefully cultivates two days' worth of beard growth before calling time on his appearance. It's pointless, though, trying to add an edge of roughness to a whole load of handsome.

Sometimes, I think he may even be prettier than me.

Anyway, I see Jackson most days, but he usually drops by the office on a Tuesday, because that's the day Lexie never drops drop by to see her sister or her brother-in-law. I'm pretty sure Jackson still loves her, and who wouldn't? Lexie is stunning, and stunningly sweet, and her eyes are deep brown. When she and Jackson broke up, she went blonde for a week or two before Mark Sloan ran into her at the bar across the street, bawled her out from breaking his protégé, then told her to change her hair colour back and tried to take her home. She refused to do any of the above, beat him at darts and then went on to give CPR to another bar patron – with a little help from Mark, of course, who carried the woman out to the ambulance himself. When I asked, Lexie told me that was when she started to see him differently. We actually get on better now she's not seeing Jackson. Why is that?

"I'm used to my boyfriends having, you know –" She waggled her straw at me before sticking it back in her cup of ice coffee and slurping. "Friends who are boys. Talking about beer and boobs and whatever else guys talk about. If I said something flip to one of my boyfriend's boy friends, he'd never be able to work out what it meant so he could report back I'd said it. You – well. You're a girl. You'd know." Her hair was back to brown by then, falling in loose waves on either side of her face.

I envy Lexie. I don't envy her Jackson, not what she had, and I didn't begrudge her having him when they were together. What I envy is what she has now, the way Mark sits and waits at the bar in Callie's with one hundred percent certainty that she's going to show up, and yet somehow still looks like he'd wait all night if she didn't. Next to him sits Derek Shepherd, waiting for his own Grey sister. He gives a very small smile when he sees Meredith through the glass door, and I want that too.

Just, you know, not from Derek Shepherd.

Maybe from Derek Shepherd.

Except it would obviously have to be in a different universe, because Derek would never leave Meredith, and it would also have to be in a universe where he'd go for me, April Kepner, so…

All those years I spent getting ready to wear a uniform have left me with a funny attitude towards clothes: I don't know how to be casual. I dress for work in a pink blouse that took me a half hour to iron, since the cuffs wouldn't go right, and a grey pencil skirt, and then I reorder the hangers in the closet as if I'm trying to hide my disturbance of the clothing peace. I feel groggy, and my stomach is burning from too much caffeine and too little food. I'll see if Arizona is awake, because if she is, I'll get an invite to breakfast whether I want to be invited or not. This morning, though, I want to, and Callie takes my order of cinnamon toast over the phone and huffs since there isn't more for her to do.

She adds a side of bacon and a tub of yoghurt off her own back, and gives me a death stare from across the breakfast bar.

"What?!"

"What did you eat for dinner last night?"

I practically break out in a cold sweat. Calliope Torres, the Bone Breaker, has a figure that goes in and out in all the right places and a sixth sense about eating habits. I swallow, take a sip of orange juice and say, "Turkey casserole."

"You really want to lie to me, Kepner? In my own apartment?"

I cave. "Half of bag of butter popcorn," I mumble, then wince as Callie makes a sound like a bull about to charge.

As ever, it's Arizona to the rescue. "Good morning, Mommy!" She says brightly, on behalf of baby Sofia in her arms. She hands her off to Callie before her wife can do anything drastic, kisses her firmly on the lips and takes a moment to enjoy the melting smile she gets in return. Then, she turns to me, surprisingly and annoyingly alert for the time of day. "Good morning, April. Try the French set yoghurt, it's delicious."

I don't really want any French set yoghurt, but I dip my spoon obediently into the pot. Callie may be bad cop, but Arizona is big, baby blue eyed cop, and not doing as she says will result in hours of guilt for me rather than any bad consequences for her. She'll go to work and save babies whether I eat the French set yoghurt or not, but I want the rest of this week to be good, so I eat it.

When I finally escape the warm, wonderful atmosphere of the Robbins-Torres (Torres-Robbins?) apartment, the breeze feels colder than it was when I left earlier. I have to shrink inside my coat as I cross the street. Our building doesn't have a doorman, and the doors are plate glass and heavy. I can see Cristina sitting in the lobby, obnoxiously eating a bagel and watching me struggle. Her dark eyes snap when I finally make it inside. I smile at her automatically, and she says, "Does _anything_ ever piss you off, Kepner?"

"No," I reply, and then there's an awkward half-minute while I wait for the elevator to arrive and Cristina studies me as she chomps her bagel, like she's trying to work out if I'm real or not.

I'm just a happy person, when my cereal and in-tray aren't conspiring to ruin my day.

My office is more functional than I'd like – the joys of renting floor space – but at least I've been able to take down the framed prints of abstract squiggles, as seen on the wall of every value for money motel you'd ever visited. Three greyscale photographs of the city hang over a corner sofa and two easy chairs, and there are two end tables with stacks of my business card and little bowls of candies. They're peppermints, which I don't like, and I buy them because I don't like them. It's unprofessional for a private investigator to ait alone in her waiting room when she's not with a client, popping candies into her mouth like she's starving. I like spearmints, so I buy peppermints, and people appreciate me giving them something before they've even come all the way in.

I appreciate not having to have long conversations with clients with coffee breath, but it's mostly the giving them something thing.

Like practically every other business on the planet, I open at nine and close at five, but I turn off the answerphone as soon as I come in in the morning, which is usually sooner. When I had my hand wrapped around my second cup of coffee of the day and I'd checked my email, there really wasn't anything to do except stare at the phone and wait (or hope) for it to ring. I stared. I waited.

It rang, half an hour before my work day was due to begin.

Creepy.

"Good morning! You're through to the office of April Kepner, licensed private investigator."

"Are you her?"

"Am I her?"

"Mrs Kepner, I mean."

"Ms," I correct the guy on the other end of the line, who has a nice sounding voice. I have to give myself a mental shake before I speak again, since beginning a fantasy based on the sound of someone's voice is definitely stupid and definitely not allowed. "But please call me April. Are you in need of an investigator?"

"April," he says, and mental shake or not, it _is_ a nice voice. "My name is Matthew Taylor. I'm the minister at St. Michael, the church down on Fir Street?"

"I know it."

He pauses, then chuckles quietly. "I'm sorry, I don't know how this works. I don't know what to say."

"That's okay." I've already started noting down his details, and my fingers are hovering in the air above the keyboard, waiting for something relevant. "Were you calling to make an appointment?"

"I was actually wondering if you'd be able to come to me." Matthew Taylor sounds sheepish. "The committee ladies are having a coffee morning and arranging the flowers from nine until noon, and I hate to say it, but I don't like to leave them alone too long to dissect my sermons or my haircut or to hypothesise about why I haven't settled down yet." Another pause. "I'm sorry, I'm talking too much about things that must not interest you one bit."

I can't help but laugh, and I hope he doesn't think I'm mocking him. "I hear much worse, much more boring, and the life and times of a minister would interest anyone. It's that thing they say in the news…human interest." I peek at my calendar, blank white squares until the end of the month. "I have a few things to organise here first, but I can be with you by ten." _Sure, show off the fact that you have no other clients to see! Why don't you tell him how you plan to pay your rent out of your savings this month too?_ "I'm sorry, there's actually a few more things than I first thought. I can be with you by eleven, is that okay?"

"That's perfect," he says, and I want to laugh again just because he sounds so grateful, and I haven't even taken the case yet. "I look forward to meeting you, _Ms_ Kepner."

I absolutely did not imagine him stressing my single status.

I did not.

I am not that neurotic.

Because I'm neurotic, and because I absolutely didn't imagine him stressing my single status, I arrive at St. Michael at ten minutes to eleven. Saint Michael the Archangel is the patron saint of police officers, since he took it upon himself to hunt down Satan and his followers, which is pretty close to what I used to do and to what Jackson, Alex and their rookies do on a day-to-day basis. I have a good feeling about a case at a place where the saint is keeping an eye on the people I care about, but I still feel awkward about being here so early. I hunch down in my seat until only the top of my head can be seen, and I stare at the dashboard clock and will the numbers to change faster.

"Are you alright, miss?"

I scoot upright so fast that my head crashes into the roof (ow, ow, _ow_), and blush rose red at my own stupidity. I clear my throat and wind down the window. There's a tall guy with slightly too much brown hair and a plaid shirt smiling apologetically down at me. I spot the strip of white at his collar and register how cute he is almost simultaneously. He's just my type, too: clean-shaven, clean-cut, with the kind of shoulders that had to have been hidden under a letter jacket during high school, or some coach should kick himself for missing out on a championship winner if ever I saw one.

"April Kepner," I croak, and flush even darker. My face is probably the same colour as my hair, damn it.

"Matthew Taylor. It's a pleasure to meet you." He puts his hand just inside the car, and it's just big enough to wrap around mine without overwhelming it. His palm is cool and dry. Taking the initiative and being a gentleman in one action, he opens my car door. "Welcome to St. Michael, Ms…April. I'm the minister here."

Jesus, please support me having a crush on this guy, in thy name I pray, amen.

Matthew, as he asks me to call him a second after I use the word 'Pastor', lowers his voice as we sneak past the door which leads into the main body of the church. White-haired ladies, with loose turkey skin or plump turkey bodies, are chattering noisily, knocking back coffee and stripping the thorns off roses inside. It's kind of adorable that Matthew's phobia is old ladies, and his expression of relief when we make it safely to his office is at odds with my idea of a man who has something for me to investigate. I put a hand to my hair, remember guys don't like girls who are obsessed with their appearance, and let it fall again.

"So how I can help, Matthew?"

He gestures me into a seat before taking his own, and the way he sits down shows the weight of a burden. The light doesn't go out of his face completely, but it does dim by a few watts. "The previous minister was very old school," he begins. "Very pro obedience from his flock. When the church needed money for something, all he had to do was glare from the altar on a Sunday morning, and the collection plate would be overflowing. I'm not like that." I'm glad he isn't, but I don't dare tell him so. We've only just met, but sure enough, I'm worrying about how to get him to like me. I'm neurotic and most of the time I own my neuroticism, but sometimes, I really don't_._ "I decided to introduce an air of competition between our teenagers," Matthew goes on. "Whoever raises the most money gets a special certificate for services to the church, and gets to pick the movie for our next 'Prayer and Pizza' night."

"Yummy," I comment, and wish I hadn't. Matthew positively beams, and then I don't mind so much.

"Thank you. It's something I brought in, a way to get the younger members of the congregation to associate talking about God with having fun." He realises he's gone off-topic, sighs and resumes. "Our most recent project is to refit the room where we have mother and baby classes on Wednesdays, since we have so many new and expecting mothers in attendance. The kids go out, they raise the money, they put it in a lock box in the entryway. I thought if anything was going to happen, it would be someone trying to steal the lockbox, which is bolted down, by the way."

"But that's not it?"

"No. What's happening is that every time we reach a certain amount – specifically, five hundred dollars – all the money disappears. It goes like clockwork: the money goes in, the money builds up, the money disappears."

"Does anyone other than you have the key to the lock box?"

"It's key code protected," he informs me. "And since I set up the code, I'm pretty sure no one else could've figured it out."

"It's not a birthday, or a recognisable sequence of numbers?"

Matthew tilts his head to one side.

"Sorry."

"No need to be sorry. You're just being thorough."

We smile at one another, taking baby steps. I feel the heat rise up in my cheeks again, and to stop the situation getting any worse, I surmise, "So you want me to find out who's taking the money, and maybe, if only for human interest –" He chuckles again. "To find out why it's disappearing when it hits five hundred. I'm also guessing you want to deal with whoever it is personally, in which case I'll report my findings to you rather than the police. Is that everything?"

"It is."

I extract a pamphlet from my purse and slide it across the desk towards him. "In that case, these are my fees."

His teeth are perfect, and so is his answering smile. "So you'll take the case?"

"You're working for His glory," I reply. "And you got pizza involved. How can I say no to that?"

Matthew stands when I stand, but he stops me before I reach the door. "Would you like to pray with me, April?"

That says so much, much more than it might say to another girl. It says he believes that I believe as truly as he does. It says he's good to talk to God with me in the same room, with me talking to God at the same time. It says he trusts me, even though he didn't know whether I was Mrs or Ms or even that I believed in God when he picked up the phone to call me this morning.

"I'd like that."

And we kneel in the corner of his office, on green leather cushions left there for the purpose. There is nothing more soothing for me than speaking to Him, even if it's nothing more than telling Him about my day so far and my hopes for the rest of the day to come. I reel off prayers for everyone I love, and include one for Matthew, a tentative prayer that his prayers are answered too, and a more definite one that I have the strength and ability to solve this case for him.

I drive back to my building refreshed, renewed and maybe a little giggly (though that has more to do with Pastor Matthew than Our Lord Jesus), and even the fact that my lunch is, as ever, missing from the shared fridge down the hall from my office doesn't faze me.

**~#~**

I bounce into Callie's at nine thirty, not surprised to see Jackson waiting at the bar. He didn't come by to see me, so I might as well have gone ahead with the ponytail, but that hardly matters now. Jackson has the hood of his grey sweater up, and he looks like a hot – but very non-threatening – Jedi.

"What's with the hood?" I ask as I sit down beside him, and Callie slides something orange and noxious in a glass towards me before I can open my mouth to order.

"It's raining," he points out.

"Not inside."

Jackson rolls his eyes at me, since he has no idea why I'm making such a big deal of this, and neither do I. I'm floating on a cloud of pink happiness, and hood up or hood down, nothing's going to stop me from sharing it.

"I got a case today."

"Hey, that's great." He clinks his beer bottle – how did Jackson get a beer when I'm stuck with Death by Clementine? – against my glass and grins at me. "Are you done winding up with the Fawcetts?"

"Almost." Death by Clementine is actually pretty tasty, as I didn't doubt it would be. Callie smirks at me as I take a bigger sip. "What about you? Save any lives today? Right any wrongs? Rescue any damsels in distress?"

"You really don't miss it, do you?" His green eyes are intense. One of the things I love about Jackson is that when you really talk to him, meaning when you talk to him about anything that matters, he listens as if there's no one else in the world but you. He doesn't break eye contact, though he does interrupt.

"You don't get to do what I get to do," I retort. "For example, you have to remain professional at all times, whereas I can attempt to flirt with the cute minister who just hired me when he invites me into his office."

Jackson starts to whistle 'Like a Virgin' under his breath, and I smack him round the back of the head before he's even made it to the first verse.

"April!"

"Stop that!"

"Stop hitting my head!"

"I will when you stop that!"

He does stop when he senses I'm serious, and punches me lightly on the arm. This is what we do, and how we fight, and how we make up. It's just natural for us to antagonise each other. We always have. We always will.

"Cute minister, huh?"

"Cute minister Matthew," I report. "How about you? Asked Edwards out yet?"

He stares me down, but I hold my ground. It's mean of me, I guess, but Officer Stephanie Edwards is so clearly in love with Jackson that each one of the dozen different ways he tries to deny it is hilarious to me. She hangs on his every word, clings to him in a crisis and bats her lashes at him whenever Jo Wilson isn't around to tease her about it. "I am _not_ asking Edwards out," Jackson says slowly, enunciating each word. "_Ever_."

"She's pretty," I point out. "She's good at what she does."

"So are you."

So we're back to this. I swirl my straw in my fluorescent orange drink and avoid his gaze. "You could handle it, I couldn't."

"You could try."

"I _couldn't_. I couldn't handle it, Jackson, and I still can't handle it, and I really need you to stop expecting me to snap out of it and be able to handle it and be a better person. I'm not," I insist, even as his arm settles around my shoulders. I should shake him off, since the weight of that arm makes me feel small and silly and incapable and safe, but I don't. "I still dream about it," I whisper, and the music in Callie's isn't so loud that he can't hear me. "I still see Reed lying there, and Charles only a few feet away because he'd been running to help her when he was shot too. I still remember slipping in their blood, and their blood being all over me, and their blood turning the water in your shower pink. Do you remember that?"

"I remember."

He'd sat on the other side of the glass partition, when I was too broken to care about privacy or anything except not being left alone. In my heart, I know he wouldn't have looked even if the glass hadn't been frosted. Jackson has never looked at me that way, and he never will.

"I'm sorry." His voice is soft as his hand chafes my shoulder. "I want to stop mentioning it, and I want it to stop hurting you – but I also want you back, April. You should be with me, with us. You should be where you always wanted to be."

To an outsider, this might sound like a conversation between lovers. I know what he means, though: that I was meant to be a cop, and to uphold justice, and to save lives, and so was he. Because he got used to me, and to having me around while he upheld justice and saved lives, he misses me, even after all this time.

"You wanna go home?" I swipe my fingers under my eyes, but they're dry. It hurts me a little less every time I have to think about Reed and Charles, but I still don't like to think about them. "You wanna watch some really bad Westerns I TiVo-ed?"

"Yes."

We pull away from each other, and this time I punch him on the arm. "Such bad manners, Jack-man. Such a lack of respect." I lift my chin, eye him down the length of my nose. "It's very unbecoming in an Avery."

"You're unbecoming in an Avery," he snarks, since he can't think of anything better to say, and I laugh, and then we say goodbye to Callie and head out. There's a storm hovering almost directly over our heads, a mass of black clouds hanging over Seattle. It makes me shiver, so I give myself another one of those mental shakes; it's just a cloud, and it's always cloudy in Seattle, and if God was going to be that obvious about His intentions, He'd probably write messages in the sky for us to read every morning over breakfast.


	3. There's A Fine, Fine Line

**3. There's A Fine, Fine Line**

Jackson has a habit of buying groceries when I run out, which is annoying – well, actually it's not annoying, actually it's super helpful, but I should be able to remember to buy groceries even when I'm putting a case to bed, and his job is much more stressful than mine, so no matter how busy I am, he should not be buying me groceries (and also, when Jackson buys me food, Jackson eats my food). He's sitting across from me as I run over these points in my head, well into his second bowl of Cheerios, awake and alert and raring to go after his run while I'm hunched over my coffee, squinting at the clock.

"Where's open at this time?" I croak.

He gives me a you-may-be-the-stupidest-person-I've-ever-met look. "April, the convenience store on your corner is twenty four hours."

"I knew that," I say quickly. "I just didn't think they had Cheerios."

He gives me a you-may-be-the-worst-liar-I've-ever-met look. "Cheerios, milk, toilet paper, almond milk…everything you'd expect a convenience store to have." I'd snort at the almond milk, which he's been drinking as part of an attempt to bulk up (no, I didn't know almonds were magical muscle food either), but I'm kind of addicted to the chocolate flavoured kind which comes in cartons, so I usually keep a couple in the fridge to take to work with me. I never drink them in front of clients, obviously, since most people aren't convinced by the credentials of a P.I. who's slurping on the almond milk version of a juice box.

"Where did you sleep?"

"I didn't."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I know he didn't sleep. I got up to use the bathroom at three and he was sitting in the exact same spot on the couch where I left him, elbows on his knees, staring at the dark TV screen. Something's bothering him, but I can't tell whether it's work or personal. We've spent most of our adult lives together and I always know when something's up with him, but he can still somehow be inscrutable when he works hard at it.

Shaking his head, he shakes me off. "No. It's fine. Just Sloan stuff, nothing for you to worry about."

The relationship between Mark Sloan and Jackson Avery is undeniably weird. Jackson looks up to his captain almost as a father figure, which is odd considering Sloan is in his early forties at most and definitely does _not_ look his age. He's all brass and charm, and I suspect he does pull-ups when there's no one else in his office. The other weird thing is that both Jackson and Captain Sloan dated Lexie, and I've only ever heard parts of the story, but I think Sloan was into her before Jackson was, but he'd never properly spoken to her – even though he's Derek Shepherd's best friend and she's Meredith Grey's little sister – before the whole going blonde/playing darts/giving CPR deal happened, and then they got together, and then it was pretty clear that Sloan had been waiting a while for his shot, and I don't think Jackson really knows how to feel about that. I _know_ he doesn't know, even though I know nothing about the way that feeling must have burned, about how maybe it burns even now, and I also don't know how to feel about Mark Sloan, who once suggested I become Jackson's buddy.

His 'stress relief' buddy.

His…you get the picture buddy.

"Is he giving you a hard time? Is this about Lexie?"

"Just forget I said anything." He carries his bowl across to the sink, turning his back on me like he's scared of what I might see in his face. Why does he hide how much he cares about her from me? It's not like I'd judge him for it. Men say jump and I ask, 'how high?' from the get-go because I'm so happy to have someone interested in me, and I expect him to judge me, and he doesn't. That consideration works both ways, and Jackson is well aware of that fact, or he should be.

But he still hides from me.

So I don't push. I sip my coffee silently, and flick him with a dishtowel on his way out of the room. He grudgingly agrees to dry up at some undetermined later date, and then he pulls his hood up against the rain, and then I hear my front door close.

It's bubble bath time.

While taking baths is bad for the environment, and it's probably bad for both body and soul to sit in dirty water for so long, the tub is where I do my best detective work. I add a glug of damask rose oil, which is the one with the rich, spicy, sexy floral scent instead of the old lady scent, and then I lie back with a washcloth around my neck and breathe deeply and start the process by staring at the ceiling. I am going to attempt to think about Pastor Matthew's problem in the tub without thinking about Pastor Matthew _in the tub_. So, the lock box is emptied every time it reaches five hundred dollars…Pastor Matthew…suggesting a regular payment, rent, extortion, child support…Pastor Matthew…no one else has the combination…Pastor Matthew, Pastor Matthew, _hot_ Pastor Matthew.

It's too late. I'm thinking about Pastor Matthew _in the tub_, and I push the sweaty hair back off my forehead and imagine what Jesus would say to me right now.

There seems to be some sort of misconception about virgins, which is what I am: people assume that we're not interested in sex. I am very interested, which is unfortunate, and I have been since my hormones started raging at age fourteen, and I have been once a month, every month since, and some days between. I just feel, feel somewhere deep inside me, that God wants me to wait. I'm guessing He wants me to wait for marriage, which is what I want too, but what I also want is for it to be more than just an act of married love when it does eventually happen, more than just a way to cement us as a couple. I want it to be _everything_, everything books and movies and girls in my high school claimed it could be. I want it to be an act worth waiting for, a memory that lasts a lifetime. I want it to be something that makes me brand new, like a skin-on-skin baptism.

These are pretty deep, pretty inappropriate thoughts for a small time private investigator in her bathtub.

_**~#~**_

McDreamy was Derek Shepherd's nickname in college, and there's no denying it suits him. He's waiting for the elevator when I arrive, wearing a black suit and a blue tie, his blue eyes smiling at me before his mouth can catch up.

"Good morning, April."

"Good morning," I manage.

I think I feel my knees shaking.

This is probably his second trip of the day up to the offices of Grey, Shepherd and Yang, because his black hair is rumpled, which means he's been running his hands through it, which means he's been worried about a case and therefore awake since the crack of dawn, worrying about his case. I get it's pitiful that I can divine Derek Shepherd's mood from the state of his hair, but his hair is almost always perfect, so when it's not, it makes an impact.

"How are you doing today?"

I also get that he doesn't really want to know how I'm doing and that he's just being polite, but I was an ugly duckling for so many years that I may never be comfortable around handsome men who bother to make conversation with me, so I tell him. I tell him my suspicion that Jackson's still hung up on Lexie, and then I ask about her and Sloan, and then I ask about Meredith, and then I launch into how I didn't know the convenience store on my corner was twenty four hours and how dumb I feel, and then I finish by freaking out over the fact that I wore lipstick today. I wore it in case I had to go to St. Michael to see Pastor Matthew, but I'm convinced it's the wrong colour, and I'm burbling on about this when Derek Shepherd smiles and shakes his head at me.

"So you don't agree that it's the wrong…" I stop.

I have to.

Because he's extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully, but with just the right amount of pressure (the way a really good kiss should feel), wiped it across my lips.

"It's not the wrong colour," Derek Shepherd informs me. "It's just too bright."

"Uh," I say, as the chime sounds and the elevator doors slide open.

"Have a great day, April."

"Uh," I say again.

It takes me a good minute and a half to remember that I need to take the elevator too.

The serenity of that hour in the bath is quickly fading, probably because I'm now distracted by the robbery at St. Michael and that fact that Derek Shepherd just _touched_ me. I try to put my work face on, but it's hard when you can't even feel your feet touching the ground. When I get out on the fourth floor and go to put my little carton of almond milk in the fridge – the lunch thief isn't a fan of almond milk – I run into Meredith and instantly feel guilty. I really shouldn't, since, you know, her husband was the one who touched me, and it wasn't like it was a big deal to him, only to me, and even though guilt is my autopilot setting, it takes so long for me to process all these facts that I've stopped dead in front of Meredith and stared at her for so long that she gives in to the desire to wave her hand in front of my face.

"Hello? Earth to Kepner?"

I snap to attention. "Morning!"

She studies me slantwise with her catlike eyes. They're a very pale shade of green, lighter than Jackson's, which have some hazel in them. Her brows are arched, and the bones of her face are sharp and beautiful. A lot of the time, the way Meredith looks makes me feel too soft, too bland, and the way Meredith looks at me makes me feel like a fool. "Are you okay?" She inquires after a beat. I stopped so close to her that my outthrust box of milk is brushing the red fabric of her shirt, which is worn under a charcoal grey suit. I could never pull off such stern colours.

I wind back my arm. "I'm great! Just great. And how are you today, Grey?"

To me, last names mean familiarity, a step beyond the awkward use of first names by awkward new acquaintances (because I'm aware that her name is Grey, not Grey-Shepherd, not Shepherd, just Grey). To Meredith, I'm pretty sure last names mean she can keep me at arm's length. I imagine she'd have my back in a fight with someone who wasn't Cristina, and we've drunk together at Callie's enough times, but Meredith, in her well-cut suit, with her well-cut hair sweeping her shoulders, comes close to unconsciously being the mean girl of my still high school-esque existence. She doesn't mean to be mean, and she's smart and caring and funny, and she's a really good lawyer…and yet I snap to attention like a soldier and can't seem to relax my spine around her.

"I'm great," she says slowly. I notice a spot of white on her shoulder, and before I can help it, I've flicked it off. Meredith actually smiles.

"Bailey," she tells me. I only know what Jackson got from Lexie, but the sum of it is that Derek and Meredith were trying for a baby for a long time, and then she had a miscarriage, and then trying didn't work, so they adopted Zola, the cutest, smartest little girl in the world who I just want to eat up (unless Sophia's around, in which case she's _one_ of the cutest, smartest little girls in the world who I just want to eat up). After Zola, it just suddenly happened for them, which is apparently quite normal for couples who adopt. Derek Bailey Shepherd has a tiny, perfect nose and ten tiny, perfect fingers, and Derek is so high-flying that he rarely even has to take cases anymore, so he does the lion's share of feeding, changing and walks in the park. That's not to say that Meredith doesn't love her baby, she does: she does casework with a cup of coffee in one hand and Bailey in the other, and she's so used to holding him that she sometimes forgets he's even there.

Or so Derek Shepherd proudly reports.

Their love story is long and twisty, mostly because Meredith wanted to be the best lawyer she could and Derek was her boss and she wasn't into commitment and was kind of a wild child for a while, and also because he was separated and awaiting divorce when he met her. His ex-wife was a lawyer too, but now she lives in L.A., and Derek and Meredith have two children and she occasionally gets spit-up on her clothes.

I want spit-up on my clothes someday.

Eventually, I make it to my office, but before I can start the process of freaking out which will end with me believing I can literally _hear_ my biological clock ticking, the phone rings.

"Good morning, you're through to the office of April Kepner, licensed private investigator."

"Kepner."

And all thoughts of babies evaporate like mist off the Pacific. Only one person barks at me down the phone, and that's Miranda Bailey, and Miranda Bailey writes the 'Whodunnit and How They Did It' column in the Seattle Post, featuring the exploits of yours truly. The relationship works both ways, because Bailey is always first to get the scoop on where a really juicy crime has gone down, and then I break traffic laws trying to get there before the police, and then I try to crack it, and then she writes it up and publishes it.

Also, she barks at me down the phone.

"Hi!" I squeak. Bailey terrifies me. My top five fears are a life without love, spiders, sharks, snakes, Miranda Bailey.

"Homicide," she announces, sounding pleased with herself. "Looks open and shut, but if you get uptown fast enough, you can probably do your Nancy Drew thing before Pretty Boy and his merry men arrive." By Pretty Boy, she means Jackson. I don't think I need to tell you who his merry men are. Pictures of Jackson pull in the eighteen to twenty five female group according to Bailey, so he always hides from her at crime scenes – the Averys are a big deal in the police force, in case you hadn't already guessed. "It's a messy one," she warns.

"Address?"

I jot it down on the pad of paper beside the phone.

"Suspects?"

There's only one name to write.

"Traffic?"

Bad at this time of the morning, but I still make it there before the SPD do.

The ground floor apartment was nicely decorated at one point, and there's real wood panelling on the walls that used to be white. The entryway is splattered with red, and I had to walk past the body and the crowd of people standing guard over it on my way in. He made it out to the street, poor guy, but died of multiple stab wounds to the chest before anyone could dial nine-one-one. The attack was so frenzied that's there spatter all the way up to the ceiling.

Not to be disrespectful to the dead, but frenzied attacks are my favourite kind.

There's the knife, dramatically stuck between a gap in the floorboards, and I make sure to wrap my hand in a baggie from my jacket pocket before I pick it up. The blood makes nasty patterns on the pale blue plastic.

"April!"

I nearly drop it.

"Why are you always the one holding the bloody knife?!"

Damn the super-efficient, speed limit-pushing Seattle Police Department.

"It's not _always_ a bloody knife." I answer Jackson's question by passing him the murder weapon, palm-to-palm, just like we were taught. "Sometimes people use guns." He blocks off the doorway until the knife is safely in his hand, then steps aside to allow Stephanie Edwards to trail in behind him. We've been introduced about a dozen times, but every time she sees me, she looks at me like I'm a creature from Mars with a zit on my chin. Since my acne cleared up years ago (and I pay a lot of money to keep it cleared up) and I'm definitely not from Mars, I can only guess that being close with Jackson means she doesn't like me very much, or else that she wants to be me. This makes no sense, as my relationship with Jackson is anything but sexual, and Stephanie is way prettier than me.

She has perfect skin, for example.

Jackson's voice brings me out of my own head, as it usually does. "How did you find out about this?"

"Bailey."

His eyes narrow. "This is open and shut. There's no family to hire you."

"Oh."

"Which means she wants a favour."

He's right, of course. Bailey likes to lay a trail of breadcrumbs to get me interested in a case she's too abrasive or too recognisable or too 'goddamn busy' to investigate herself. She throws frenzied attacks and clear evidence of guilt into my lap and tricks me into getting a taste for the more hardcore aspect of my job again, and then after the breadcrumbs comes the gingerbread house: the unsolvable, the uncomfortable, the award-winning. I can't ever turn away. Missing dogs and cheating husbands pay my bills, but they totally fail to get my heart racing.

"Don't do it," Jackson advises me. "You've got this church thing, you'll get other clients soon."

"But what if someone needs my help?"

"Then they can come to you themselves." He takes hold of me, gripping the top of my arms, and Stephanie makes a sound like a scalded cat. Jackson doesn't seem to hear. "You practically worked yourself to death over those copycat sexual assaults, and there was no payoff for you at the end."

"Sen's in prison," I point out.

"Sen wanted conjugal visits with you in exchange for his confession."

I wince. He's squeezing my arms too hard, and my fingers are starting to tingle.

"Jackson, you're hurting me."

But it still takes him a second to pull back. For that one moment, he holds pressure, and I can't tell if he's looking at me, or looking through me, or whether he's seeing me at all. I can't tell what he's thinking. My eyes meet his eyes, then I glance away, then I glance back. His expression hasn't changed, and it refuses to change, even when his fingers uncurl. He lets me go. He steps back.

"I'm sorry."

"It's nothing." It's nothing but business as usual, me hurriedly brushing back the hair that's drifted over my cheek, him turning to Stephanie and instructing her what to do about the body outside, the way I might have with my rookie if I'd been the one who could deal with the death of our friends. "I guess I'd better go see what Bailey wants."

"I guess you had," says Jackson, like it's no big deal. Maybe it's not.

Maybe it is?

If he looked, and he did see me, then chances are he saw more than most people.

That scares me a little.

Because I'm an adult and, more importantly, because I'm an adult who used to be a police officer, I pull myself together on the ride over to the Seattle Post building. I blast country music, because really, whose thoughts can be deep and dark when there's country music playing and they've just been at the scene of a frenzied murder? I think of Reed, of her sweet, sexy, pixie-like face, of how much braver than me she was in just about every way – except when it came to horror movies. I'm a fan of the slasher variety, of blood and guts and gore. She wasn't the type to hide behind a cushion, so she genuinely used to go out to sports bars rather than stay in the house while I stuffed myself with popcorn and scared myself with silly with fake blood and guts and the psychology of it all.

I wonder, as I always wonder, if a tiny concession on my part might have changed the course of her life. If we'd eaten lunch together on a certain day, or if I hadn't watched Saw one night and she'd stayed in with me, would the day she died have gone any differently?

Whose thoughts can be deep and dark when there's country music playing and they've just been at the scene of a frenzied murder?

Mine, I guess.

Bailey is in the act of methodically eating an almond croissant when I knock on her door. She's torn it into sections, and every few seconds she peels back a layer of pastry, pops into her mouth, pauses, peels back a layer of marzipan, then eats that too. She takes a sip of coffee and gestures for me to sit opposite her, which I do. I already feel reprimanded, even though I haven't done anything wrong. I already feel anxious about what she's going to ask me to do. Sweat dews between my shoulder blades.

"Tell me," she begins, an order rather than a request. "About the cop killings."

"The what?"

"Don't play coy with me, Kepner. You and Pretty Boy are practically joined at the hip, I know you know what I'm talking about."

"I know I don't know what you're talking about," I insist. I honestly don't. "There haven't been any cop killings."

There's a moment where Bailey tries to figure out if I'm bluffing, then she slaps the latest copy of the Post down on her desk between us. "You should read the paper, Nancy Drew."

_Most Recent Cop Killing is 'Part of a Pattern', say Experts  
><em>

I don't want to read further. I can't. My fingertips skitter over the headline, the by-line, over the photo of a slightly paunchy older man who, thank the Lord, I've never seen before. His family will be in my prayers tonight nevertheless. I'll pray, and I'll probably cry, but I won't read any further. My hands skitter right off the page, right off the desk, drop into my lap and tremble.

"Nine millimetre," Bailey says, in a gentle tone that doesn't match the words 'nine millimetre'. "The recovered bullet had striations – striations the lab have seen before."

"No." I focus on my hands.

"They were matched to the bullets which killed Officers Charles Percy and Reed Adamson."

"_No_." My whole body is shaking now, rattling my bones. My lipstick must look even brighter, since my face feels so cold that it can only be corpse-coloured. "The person who killed Charles and Reed is was caught. I saw him convicted and sentenced." Because I'm an adult, an adult who used to have more than one good friend, I wrench my chin up and glare at her. "George O'Malley is in jail, and every day he makes me a bad Christian, because I won't forgive him."

"George O'Malley is appealing his conviction," she tells me. "George O'Malley is being represented by the firm of Grey, Shepherd and Yang."

I feel the anger and hate bubble up inside me, as dangerous and as seductive as boiling sugar. No, I couldn't deal with what happened, and this is one of the reasons why. I was angry, and I grieved, and I'm still angry, and I still grieve. I went through the five stages of grief, and I accepted that they're dead, and that God has welcomed them into His kingdom, where there are no bullets and no slasher movies either, but some days I deny, and some days I'm angry, and today has just become one of those days.

"You think I can find the real killer, if George O'Malley really didn't do it."

Bailey's eyes are large, brown and clear. "I think no one has a better motive for finding him than you."

"Where do I even start?"

"First off, I recommend you talk to the appellant." Even the idea has me pressing back into my chair, as if it's a hundred foot plunge I have to stay away from. "He always protested that he'd been trying to help them because he was a doctor, that that's the reason why their blood was all over him, that he only ran from the scene because he was afraid of being falsely accused. Sure, he got kicked out of Seattle Grace's surgical program, but that makes him incompetent, not evil."

"And then?"

"And then I suggest you and I review whatever evidence we can get our hands on." She leans back, challenging me to challenge her. She appears as cool as a cucumber, but her mouth is sour. "My ex-husband is a cop. My husband is in private security and wants to be a cop. I don't like people who kill cops."

"Neither," I manage. "Do I."

I call Jackson from the car, in full knowledge of the fact that his phone will be off until the end of his shift. "I guess it's not Lexie you were worried about," I say, hearing my own voice echoing back on the answerphone. I sound far off and cold. This isn't me. This isn't what I'm like.

Still, when he calls me back later that night, I turn up the volume on the TV and pretend not to notice. There are lines, I decide, drawn between people, and some of them are never meant to be crossed. He lied, and a lie of omission is still a lie. There are lines between us, and he crossed one, and he decided I was a person who couldn't handle the truth because I dropped out and bounced back and have never gotten over something which maybe I'm never supposed to get over. He decided I was fragile, and decided he was the strong, silent type of man who deals with business and who he has no business being, not with me.

There are lines drawn between people, and apparently there are lies too.

If he sees me, then I see him right back, and I guarantee I see more than most people.


	4. Smiling Faces Sometimes

**4. Smiling Faces Sometimes**

When I was nine, my sister Libby cut all the hair off my Barbie doll. I stood and watched her do it, too stunned to make a sound as the glossy gold and pink locks drifted to the floor. She did it because _her_ Barbie only had basic blonde hair, but _I'd_ only gotten a Barbie with two-tone hair because my dad did what any man would do when faced with buying Christmas gifts for his daughter: he grabbed the first doll off the first shelf in the first store he went into, charged his card, and congratulated himself on a job well done.

When I was ten, I cut off Libby's ponytail the night before the girls' choice at school. Her screams woke me the next morning, sweeter than even my sweet, smug dreams (I like to win). I hid the ponytail in her underwear drawer which, of course, provoked more screaming when she went to get a pair of panties. I never told her it was me, but I told our minister, who said I should apologise to Libby. I never did, and she never bought me a new Barbie doll – she did wear her hair in a bob until her mid-teens, though.

Conclusion: I like to win, and I'm good at holding grudges.

Jackson corners me in Callie's, which opens early on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and where I sometimes get to have a baby on my lapwhile I drink my coffee. He's holding a takeout cup from a well-known chain, which earns him a glare from Callie, who was already planning on glaring at him on my behalf. She scoops Sofia off my lap like she's protecting her daughter from being contamination and stalks away, muttering in Spanish.

Is it bad parenting to use the word _puta_ if your toddler can't talk yet?

"Can you just go away, please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Planting his hands on my knees, Jackson turns me to face him. I allow it reluctantly, annoyed first because I don't like being manhandled, and second because I'm still smarting over his lack of faith in me. "You don't get to shut me out just because you're mad," he says. "You're allowed to be mad, but you have to talk to me about it. Those are the rules."

"The rules according to whom?"

"Uh, according to everyone?"

"He's right," Arizona chimes in, slipping past us on her way out to work. I roll my eyes, but she's too quick for me. I end up looking like I'm exasperated with the door as it swings closed behind her.

"I'm so mad, Jackson."

"I know."

"_So_ mad."

"I know." He presses down lightly on my thighs, keeping me right where he wants me, sitting on this barstool, incapable of escape.

I don't like confrontation.

I didn't think he did either.

"I don't know how you could do that," I accuse his collar, refusing to look him in the eye. "I don't know how you could hide that from me." Because he's a guy before he's a police officer, he's left his top button undone, which will piss off Sloan before the day's even begun. Feeling like his mother – who would never be caught dead fussing like this – I reach up and slip it through the buttonhole, my fingernails scraping the freshly shaved and slightly tender skin of his throat. If he spoke, I would feel the vibration. Even the idea of that makes me uncomfortable, so I pull back, gently push away the hands pushing on me. "You thought I'd freak out, and you're right, I'm freaking out, because my best friend is a cop, and a cop has been _murdered_, so yes, I'm freaking out, but over you, not over them." But I'm still not quite easy, and touching his skin is too much. I fold my arms across my chest. "You don't have to take care of me, Jackson. You need to take care of yourself."

"April…" Jackson rubs the back of his neck. He's taken a step back, so I can pick up my coffee and act normal again. "I'll be fine. You know I'll be fine."

"I don't know that. You don't know that."

I can count my close friends on one hand, and no, it's not just Jackson, I'm fully committed to freaking out about them all. Callie owns a bar, what if someone tries to rob it? What it the robber has a gun? What if a couple of guys get too rowdy, and when Callie the Bone Breaker wades in, she gets hurt, thrown to the floor, slashed with broken glass? Arizona is a doctor, and I'll tell you for free that doctors are as much in the firing line as any police officer or soldier. Her good heart means she takes in anyone, even kids from poorer areas who never got their shots and now present with the prodrome stage of tuberculosis, measles, whooping cough. If she so much as inhales at the wrong time, she could get infected.

If she gets treated too late, she could die.

In my darker moments, I've imagined the deaths of every single one of my friends. It's not wishful thinking, but it's a pattern I can't break out of. I can't save them either. The best I can do is pester Arizona about her own shots and dig my nails into my palms when Callie cracks her knuckles at any rival football fans who dare to butt heads in her bar.

"No, I don't know that," he concedes. If he noticed me going somewhere else in my head, he doesn't mention it. Jackson is well aware of how much time I waste worrying over things I can't do anything about, how I see eight sides of everything. "But you have to trust me, April. I'm good at the job, and I'm good at being careful. If I were any better, I'd be as paranoid as you are." He picks up his takeout coffee cup, and we swig in synchronisation. "What have you got going on today?"

I blink, caught out by how quickly he's swept my concerns under the rug, not to mention the grudge I was meant to be holding. "Matthew's taking a class most of the teenagers under suspicion attend. He wants me to come along, do some digging."

"Matthew?"

"Just Matthew."

"And are Matthew and you planning on doing anything after class?"

"Are you suggesting we should be doing something?"

Is he suggesting Matthew should have asked me out by now?

Can he tell that I wish he would?

"You like him. He likes you. I don't see the problem." Jackson drains the last of his coffee, then flips the cup back over his shoulder and into the trashcan. It's a show-off move and there's no one here to see it, so I arch an eyebrow at him.

"I don't know if he likes me. He probably doesn't."

"Do you want to find out?"

"No."

"April…"

"_No_."

"Faint heart never won fair lady."

"Matthew is neither fair nor a lady."

"Fine, then being chicken never got anyone anywhere."

Me, chicken? Me, a private investigator, chicken? My mouth drops open. "I am _not_ chicken!"

Jackson grins. "Prove it."

"How?"

"Let me drive you, and we'll see what happens."

I'm wary of a prank, not that it matters now that I've pretty much caved anyway. If I back down now, clucking sounds will echo through my apartment morning, noon and night. "Just drive me? Not drive me, then lock yourself in Matthew's office and interrogate him? Not make him fill out a survey that says 'check this box if you'd be interested in a relationship with April Kepner', or 'on a scale of one to ten, what level of attractiveness would you rate April Kepner'?"

He raises his right hand like he's swearing an oath. "Just drive you. Karev and I are partnered for hand-to-hand from eleven, so I don't have time to lock anyone anywhere."

"Lunch?" I offer. It's Saturday, his half-day. He'll go in this evening to work on Sloan's super-secret chief projects, then come by later to complain about my poor choice of cable channels.

"If Alex is invited."

"Alex means Jo."

"Then it's a party."

Alex Karev and I are…complicated. There was one almost night at Jackson's after a party, and Alex was an ass about the almost part (he was paid back for that with a punch to the face, and no, I'm not going to say by whom). He's really shaped up recently, even going so far as to apologise to me of his own free will. I suspect there may even be a heart of gold buried deep beneath those impressive pecs.

Still, Alex and I are complicated.

I sigh before I can stop myself. "Fine. Pick me up at one."

"But what if something happens with His Holiness?"

"He's a pastor, not the Pope. _One_, Jackman."

Since we're now back to nicknames, I must've forgiven him. How did that happen?

Matthew is now Matthew because we've been talking on the phone a lot over the past week, so much that I've given up on using his title, even in my head. There's something about his voice that makes me feel warm and gooey, like melted chocolate, and there's something about the way he speaks about the love of God which whispers to me on a deeper level. He's waiting on the steps as we pull up outside St. Michael, and my heart squeezes gently when he smiles. Jackson switches off the wipers, then the engine, then squints through the windshield.

"That him?"

"That's him."

"April, I…"

April, he…what? I turn my head, my brows drawing together, and Jackson does something strange. Still sort of immobilised by his seatbelt, he leans towards me. The scent of his skin and his clothes is clean, cotton fresh, just a little bit musky. I freeze like a rabbit when he lays his lips on my cheek. I can't remember Jackson ever kissing me before, even there, and it's stranger than strange. I _feel_ him, all of him, the slight roughness of his jaw against mine, the surprising softness of his mouth, the way his shoulder bumps against mine. I already had that whole epiphany about the lines which exist between people, but this one is okay to be crossed, right? So long as it doesn't mean anything? I do get that it doesn't mean anything, because I get what he's doing. I see it in his amused green eyes as he pulls away.

"Good luck."

I skipped breakfast, and the consequence is a mild dizziness that's only just starting to bother me now. I climb shakily out of the car, gripping the door frame like an old lady, then embarrass myself even further by rushing up the steps to get to Matthew, as well as to get under the protection of the church's portico.

Matthew's expression has slipped. "Was that your boyfriend?"

"Best friend," I correct him. "That was Jackson."

His attention is fixed on the four-by-four as it drives away. He's not even facing me when he asks, "April, would you like to have dinner with me?"

My heart squeezes again, harder. "What?"

Manners are very important to Matthew, I could tell that from the moment I met him. He pulls himself together and turns to me, that much taller than me, that much more intense than I am, suddenly seeming set on the idea. I'm not complaining. "You're beautiful," he says, his voice low, his gaze brown and warm and so open, so very honest that can I believe he believes I'm beautiful. "And you're brave – I've been reading Miranda Bailey's columns about you, so don't deny it. You may be the bravest, most beautiful woman I've ever met." He takes a deep breath, gives himself a little shake. He looks intent. He looks intoxicated.

I am intoxicating to him.

_I _am intoxicating to_ him_.

"Would you like to have dinner with me, April?"

"Yes," I reply, and then I stretch up on my toes to kiss his cheek, the way Jackson kissed mine. He may be the sweetest, most honourable man I've ever met. I may even make his heart squeeze, the way he does mine. "I'd love to have dinner with you, Matthew."

I guess he does like me.

_**~#~**_

I was never that girl who got picked at the dance. I was never that girl ho got picked at _anything_, but Matthew picked me. I let myself enjoy that fact, and then I let myself skip the couple of blocks to the grill where we're having lunch and dance through the doors. The hostess snaps gum and tells me my party has already arrived. The blend right in, Jackson and Alex in sweatpants and sweat-marked t-shirts, Jo Wilson in the women's version of that unappealing outfit. Her shirt has a deep V-neck, and Alex's eyes keep drifting.

He probably wouldn't see a bus heading for his face, let alone Jackson's first.

"Hey!" I plop down onto the banquette and reach for the menu. "Isn't it a beautiful day? Did the waitress bring the specials board by yet? What looks good?"

Jo doesn't do peppy. She rolls up a loaded potato skin, shoves it into her mouth, and stares at me.

"Crap," says Alex. "Kepner's in a good mood."

"Funny," I reply. "That Karev never is."

Jackson doesn't join in the banter. I'm almost a little bit annoyed about what he pulled in the car this morning, regardless of the result, so I decide not to speak to him until he speaks to me.

We order. Maybe it's because they're both tired, dressed alike and red-blooded males, but Jackson and Alex order the same steak cut with the same traditional sauce and fries. Jo orders ribs, then acts like the waitress, whose name tag reads 'Becky', is as dumb as a stump when she asks if that's a half or a full rack. Since I didn't get breakfast, I allow myself a burger, and then I allow myself bacon and cheese, and then I add a side of sweet potato fries because they're better for you than ordinary fries, and every little helps when you're about to eat a burger whose two ingredients are dead cow and unrefined grease.

We eat. Alex is only a bite or two into his steak when he puts down his knife and bares his teeth at me. I twitch. I will not be cowed by Alex Karev, even if Alex Karev is gearing up to make fun of me, the topic of interest being my love life (because I guess I have a love life now, and I've just made it blatantly obvious by bouncing and beaming like a junior cheerleader, still young enough not to be slutty).

"So, Apes."

"Alex."

"Who'd you give your flower to?"

You know that thing that happens in movies but never in real life, where people spit their drinks because the most awkward and heinous question in the world has just been asked? It turns out that really does happen. Jo sucks in a bone and gags, and Jackson sprays his plate with beer. I blush amber, red, halfway to a new career as a traffic light. I feel my bright, shiny joy begin to curl up at the edges.

"Shut up," I manage.

"That has to be what put a smile on your face, right?"

"Wrong."

"Now, does that mean you didn't do it or that it wasn't that good?"

I stuff in a fry, give myself a moment. "You tell me, Alex. You're a big tough cop with dozens of busts and, you claim, dozens of conquests under your belt. Does the fact that you haven't gone for the one girl you actually care about mean you're a chickenshit, or that you were lying about those dozens of girls who came before her and you're going to die alone, wandering the streets with some ancient form of syphilis?" Not all of that made sense, and I'm longing to hold my cold beer bottle against my hot face, but Alex is choking on his own beer, so I've definitely done something right.

When he can breathe again, he leans back against the sticky red leather. "So what put a smile on your face, Kepner?"

"I have a date."

"You're cute," Jo says out of the blue. "You must go on lots of dates."

"Thank you for the compliment, but no. No, I do not."

I actually haven't been on a date in six months, which leads me to the inevitable post-glow panicking stage. What if I've forgotten what to do, how to sit, what to order so I don't seem greedy or like I'm starving myself? What if I cross my legs at the table? My mother would never forgive me if I crossed my legs at the table. It's important for a woman to have her feet firmly on the ground, that's what she always told my sisters and I. My blood pressure climbs (I can always feel it rising, like steam in a sauna), my right leg to jiggle uncontrollably. I thank God that no one above table level can see it, or read my mind, for that matter.

Jo Wilson is my polar opposite. She's methodically working her way through her rack of ribs, not knowing or more likely not caring about the sauce on her chin, or about the happy noises she makes as she chows down. "Alex." She eats another rib for the road. "Who's 'the one girl you actually care about'?"

None of us are that hungry, but we all grab for the dessert menu at the same time. In the ensuing tussle, Alex cedes to Jackson and Jackson cedes to me, and I order a banana split from Becky the waitress before Jo's even finished her plate. She's been sufficiently distracted and seems happy to continue. How can she be so oblivious, I wonder, when looks at her the way she's looking at those ribs?

"So." Alex clears his throat and focuses on me again, since I've just given him just cause for a vendetta.

Oops.

"Who's the guy?"

"His name is Matthew, and he's a minister, and he's tall, and he has really big hands and really nice manners, and he's kind of like you, Alex, only a not a jerk jock whose nearest relation is a gorilla."

"Ouch. Seriously, though, are you gonna do it with this guy?"

"No!"

"Come, on Apes!"

"Why do you care so much?"

He shrugs. "Beats the hell out of me. I just figure you're wasting the best years of your life, waiting for some fairytale prince who's never going to come along. Guys are just guys. Some are stupid and some are smart, and some will be sweet to you and some won't, but most of them want to sleep with you, and a guy who's willing to wait for you to marry him before taking you out for a test drive is a guy who's either gay, or doesn't want you enough."

"Because a guy who wants me enough would what – tear my clothes off the first chance he got?"

"Not the first chance." Alex gestures with his fork like he's conducting an imaginary choir. "But even you know that it can be a slow burn kind of thing. It builds, this thing you have going on between you, all the way to the point where he looks at you and you look at him, and there's no way it isn't going to happen." I hope no one else notices the way he glances towards Jo, the way he keeps glancing towards Jo. There's no way she'll stay oblivious forever, not unless he learns to be more subtle. Right now, he may as well go the whole hog and tattoo the way he feels about her on his forehead. "And if it doesn't build, and if you don't keep feeling like parts of you are going to start falling off if you don't jump each other, then it's not real."

I lean back to make space as my split is deposited in front of me. "Alex Karev is a closet romantic."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Shut up, Virgin Mary. It's about sex, not romance, and you'll get that after you cave and bang His Holiness."

"Why does everyone keep calling him that? He's just a guy, not the Pope!"

"Dude, he has to have a flock or whatever to even have a chance of getting into your pants!"

And this is why I should never get into fights I can't win. Instead of wasting my breath, I nudge my plate towards Jackson and break my promise not to speak to him first. "Wanna split my split?"

"By that, do you mean 'please eat practically all of my split, because I'm only going to get a few spoonfuls in before I remember I don't like bananas'?" He was watching me for a while before I turned to him, and now he's pretending he wasn't. What is wrong with everyone today? I've been kissed, asked out – and not by the same man who kissed me – cross-questioned, complimented and now studied like a specimen in a lab by my best friend, who thinks I'm unaware that he was studying me like a specimen in a lab. Is there a neon sign above my head flashing 'open for business'? 'Person of interest'? Wasn't I interesting before?

No, probably not.

"You should have all of it."

"What? Why?"

"I've lost my appetite."

That doesn't do anything to reduce the level of staring, of course, not from any of them.

It's easy enough to see that I don't like feeling fragile, and what I like even less is being considered fragile, and watched over, and patronised. I'm not weak. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not weak.

It gets too much. I struggle out of the booth and take refuge in the ladies' room (the sign on the door reads 'broads'), pressed up close to my own reflection, the kind of close you only ever get when you're trying to see inside yourself, when questions like why you are who you are suddenly occur to you, when your face starts to look like the face of a stranger.

She gives a minute or so, then follows me in and puts her back against the door.

"Alex doesn't mean to be a douche."

"I know that."

"And it's nice to hear you've found a guy. Good for you."

"Thanks."

Jo comes further into the room, making the space more intimate, but not in an intrusive way. I really doubt she cares about my deepest, darkest desires, which is kind of refreshing. My secrets have no effect on her life, so she's decided she doesn't need to hear them. She's a real rough diamond.

"But I thought someone should tell you that it's obvious this isn't about Alex."

An omniscient rough diamond, apparently.

"Then what _is_ it obviously about?"

"Don't act like…oh." She rocks back on her heels, folds her arms. "You genuinely don't get it, do you? I guess it's not my place to tell you, in that case."

"To tell me what? What, Jo?!"

"God!" Jo sighs, rolls her eyes to Heaven, pushes her (gorgeous) hair back off her (gorgeous) face. "Okay, I'm going to Simple English Dictionary it for you, because it's going to drive me crazy otherwise: Alex is not the problem."

"Uh-huh."

"So you have to work out who is the problem."

"Right."

"Once you work that out, you'll have your answer – maybe all the answers."

"Great." And if I sound irritated, it's because I am. "Thanks for the advice."

"I'd say you were welcome if you genuinely meant that."

I don't, and I don't want to listen to her anymore. "Have we got the check yet?"

"It's taken care of. I told them you were capable of making it home on your own, though"

"Do you have a ride?"

"Yeah, I do."

He's waiting for her.

He's willing to wait for her.

"I'm okay, Wilson. You can go."

She does, but she still looks at me like I might be crazy and she might be sorry for me on her way out. When I'm alone, I box up my bad temper and remember that I have a date tomorrow night, and that I'm healthy, and that I just ate a damn good burger, and that I shouldn't be so ungrateful to Jackson, who helped me get that date, and that Alex is always an ass and, most importantly, that I have work to do.

_**~#~**_

"Grey, Shepherd and Yang, attorneys at law, how may I direct your call?"

"Rose, it's April."

"April, how are you?"

"I'm actually kind of on a mission right now. Is Meredith in her office?"

"She is, would you like me to put you through?"

"Don't worry, I'm on my way over."

Rose is a glossy-haired brunette who's probably elegant even in her sleep. Her deep blue suit has a shawl collar, and her legs are neatly crossed at the ankle as I approach her desk. "Go straight through," she instructs me. "She's expecting you."

She is. She's leaning back with her eyes closed, and then she's leaning forward over her desk, and her expression is anything but friendly.

"I know why you're here."

"How could you?" I demand, fuelled by red meat and one bad temper in a carryout container.

"How could I represent a man my firm believes to be innocent? I wonder, Kepner."

"He's a convicted murderer!"

"The Innocence Project was built on convicted murderers." Meredith inspects her nails. "The case against George O'Malley was shaky and barely legal, which you would've known if you'd been called on to testify, but you weren't. You weren't the plaintiff in this case, you're not even a family member. I don't have to justify myself to you, April." Her words sting, but there's something going on an inch or so beneath them that makes me prick up my ears. She's giving me too much information, much more than she thinks I deserve. "Especially since you got everything you have from Bailey, who presumably twisted your arm until you agreed to go back over the original case, which is exactly what I'm doing, so you need George, and you need me. You have nothing to be righteous about."

"I…" George? Since when has he been 'George' to her? "Are you going to help me get access to O'Malley?"

Meredith smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "As it happens, I was getting ready to stop by your office when you stormed into mine." By 'stop by', she means 'descend on'. "Cristina and I believe that a re-examination of the evidence by an outside investigator will strengthen George's appeal."

"So?"

"So you want access to George? It's your lucky day, April: he wants access to you too."

"Wh…what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that George O'Malley has invited you to be his guest at King County Jail. He wants to hire you, April." She sits back in her chair, raises her chin. "Isn't that nice?"

I swallow.

I swallow hard.


	5. Mama Tried

**5. Mama Tried**

Jackson takes me to dinner the night before my date with George O'Malley at King County Jail. He doesn't ask, he just turns up at my door and orders me into the shower, then flaps his hands at me when I come out in jeans so I have to turn around and hunt through my closet for a dress before he's satisfied (I don't have many dresses, and the one I pick is a church dress, but Jackson wouldn't know a church dress from a wedding dress – well, he'd probably freak out if I came out in a wedding dress, but any other dress would do). We have shrimp, not Jack Daniels sauce-slathered hunks of meat, but we don't talk about Charles and Reed. We talk about us, about things that have happened since Charles and Reed, about how clear it is that Alex loves Jo to everyone but Jo.

He walks me to my door, and I turn to face him, put my back against it.

"Do you want me to stay?"

If he stays, I'll crumble. I'll break down after the third grainy Western movie, and admit how scared I am, and tell him that I don't think I can look the man who I still believe killed my friends in the eye.

I don't believe I can make it out of there without shattering like glass.

"No, you should go."

"Okay." He puts his hands back in his pockets, shuffles his feet like he's getting ready to walk away, but then he leans forward again. I pause in the doorway, caught in the act of slipping my purse off my shoulder, reaching inside for my key.

"Jackson?"

"I can always stay." I suddenly understand that whatever tomorrow brings, I won't be the only casualty. His mouth is set, and the grey shirt and tie he wore to dinner make him seem even more serious. The thought of George O'Malley, of George O'Malley in the same room as me, has taken away his colour, taken away all the colour in the world. "If you want me, I can always stay."

"I don't," I say quickly, clutching my key like a life-preserver. "I can handle this on my own."

But my palm is starting to sweat around the metal.

"I'll probably see you at Callie's after."

I press against the other side of the door once I've closed it behind me, seeing him the way he was, before he started cutting his hair so short, when he still thought five o'clock shadow was scruffy, not sexy, and I see them the way they were, even though we were so careful not to talk about them, and the garlic shrimp and two glasses of wine I had with dinner come rushing back up, and I only just make it to the bathroom in time. The tiles are cold and sharp, cutting into my knees through my pantyhose. I can't stop shivering even when I'm done throwing up.

I am not weak.

I am _not_ weak.

"I'm not weak," I tell Arizona, once I've brushed my teeth (three times), showered (twice), and set out two saltines I don't plan on eating anytime soon. She's just gotten out of the shower too, so she's put the phone on the bed while she applies moisturiser and paints her toenails. "Anyone would feel queasy the night before they have to visit the big house."

"Super queasy," she confirms. "Do you want me to come over?"

"No, that's okay."

"Do you want me and Callie to come over and bring some of the good stuff we keep under the bar?"

I nearly laugh. I try, but it doesn't come out, and I catch sight of myself trying to laugh in the mirror over the TV, and it doesn't look good, so I stop trying and make a mental note not to try again. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine. I'm not weak, I'm not upset, my heart rate is only slightly elevated and I'll not sweating through my clothes. I'll be fine."

"You are fine, or you will be fine?"

"I _am_ fine."

"Mmhmm." That's her you-can't-fool-me-I-work-with-children-and-children-lie voice. "What does Jackson think about you going to see O'Malley?"

"He's not happy, but we didn't talk about it much. He offered to stay, if I wanted him."

"If you wanted him _to_?"

"He said, quote, 'if you want me, I can always stay', unquote."

"Calliope!"

"Why are you calling Callie? What does she have to do with this?"

"What do I have to do with what?"

"Jackson said he'd stay with April if she wanted him, not if she wanted him _to_."

"Ha."

"Ha? Why ha? Ha what?" I've been twirling the phone cord (no, my phone isn't cordless, fire is the next big thing and dinosaurs still roam the earth, I've heard it all before) around my finger while they giggle and chatter in this generally adorable way because they're genuinely the most adorable couple ever, and that's gets annoying, because when Arizona says something, Callie hears what she's saying underneath the words, and I don't.

"Nuh-uh, that's on you."

"Why do you sound so _happy_?"

"Because Arizona owes me a hundred bucks."

"Was it really a hundred?"

"Truly, madly, deeply, one hundred."

"Would you accept an alternate form of payment?"

"What, like this?"

"Like –"

"Hanging up now," I mutter, since the most adorable couple ever have already forgotten I exist, and you have no idea it is to be jealous of two women in love when all you want is to be in love with a man, when you're so desperate for that feeling, that certainty. It's too early to put the words 'Matthew' and 'love' in the same sentence, but I would fast forward my life, skip past all the good things that may or may not happen over the next few months, if I could be sure he was the one God pulled out of His big box of eligible bachelors for me. I'm ready.

I have been ready forever, and Callie and Arizona's private jokes make me feel like I'm falling behind before I've even begun.

**_~#~_**

Unless you've ever visited one, you'd be surprised at what a jail smells like. There's a universal smell that municipal buildings and hospitals and jails all have, sort of clinical, sort of like the hand sanitiser that claims to kill ninety nine point nine percent of bacteria and probably means our grandchildren are going to be killed by multi-resistant super-bugs. The air is too dry and the guards' uniforms are too crisp, their faces too sharply in focus. I'm patted down three times: once at the entrance, once when I pass into the secure area, and once more after I pass through the metal detector. I have to check my bag, and my car keys jingle in my trembling hand as I place them in a bright orange plastic tray.

The desk clerk, who overflows her pants and is wearing out of place pink lipstick, smiles sympathetically at me. "First time?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"April Kepner," she affirms, handing over my name tag. "To see George O'Malley. You're a private investigator, that's correct?"

"Yes, I am."

"I'll just write this up as a legal visit then, hon." She smiles, her lips seeming even pinker against her white teeth, her reddish skin. She thinks she's doing me a favour, that I'll be happy to hear that this visit is official, that George O'Malley will be able to keep his full roster of good behaviour benefits. She seems so sweet, but the ham-sized muscles in her arms make me feel strangely sick. If even the clerks here have to be able to defend or restrain at a moment's notice, I don't stand a chance.

"Thank you." I clip the tag onto my jacket pocket.

"You just follow Officer Ross. He'll escort you to Mr O'Malley."

Officer Ross is handsome, but I only notice in the kind of abstracted way you notice an old person must have been handsome a long time ago. He makes polite conversation with me, and the hint of South in his accent makes me think it's because his mother raised him well. My tongue is too thick to answer even one of well-mannered question he asks me. It gets difficult to swallow when we stop outside to a door with a safety glass pane and a keypad beside the handle.

"The warden's in there already, Ms Kepner, you'll be absolutely safe."

"Thank you," is all I can manage again.

Officer Ross, who probably thinks I'm rude instead of terrified, smiles briefly and keys in a code with his thumb. The light above the door changes from red to green and, as he ushers me through, I can see there's a corresponding light on the other side, which also turns green. A woman with a lean face, a lean physique and a shirt with unbelievably neat cuffs is waiting for me. She strides forward to shake my hand, clasps it firmly and then backs up again.

"Ms Kepner, I'm Theodora Altman."

"It's nice to meet you, Ms Altman."

Theodora Altman gives me a look like she knows I don't mean it, but carries right on, "I opted to oversee this interview personally, I hope you don't mind. I'm bound by law to keep the details of your conversation with the prisoner confidential, unless any content indicates an intent to harm himself, yourself or others, or to commit an act of terrorism. I've completed two tours of duty in Iraq, I'm a competent martial artist and I'm more than capable of ensuring your security. Any objections?"

"Uh…no." The way she speaks makes it sound like anyone who's completed _one_ tour of duty in Iraq is a wuss. I can't imagine what she must think of me, in my navy blue skirt suit, my hair up in a ponytail because something about me had to be perky today.

_This is who I fought for_? That's probably what she's thinking right now.

"Bring in the prisoner," she tells her lapel.

I sit down.

I breathe in.

George O'Malley doesn't look like a murderer (but then, who does? That's why murderers get away with murder, right?) His chin is soft and his face is babyish, and his eyes are big and blue and make juries believe he couldn't have meant to do what he did. He beams at me, maintaining eye contact as he walks forward to take the other seat at the table.

"Officer Kepner," he says carefully. "Thank you so much for coming."

If he'd taped wires to my skin and run an electric current right through me, I wouldn't have jerked as violently as I do now, cringing away from the title, from him. His voice is so normal, the only normal thing about this person, this room, this meeting. I am not me anymore. I am Officer April Kepner, and my hair is brown, and the only friend I have left in the world is sitting outside the shower stall because he thinks I might do something stupid while I'm in it. My life, all planned out and tied up with a bow, goes down the drain with the awful pink water.

"Not Officer," I correct the table top. "Just Ms Kepner."

"Ms Kepner," he repeats. "I know what you must think of me. If I were you, I wouldn't want to look at me either. I'd be disgusted to even be in the same room as me, but you have to believe me – I didn't kill Reed Adamson or Charles Percy. I tried to save them."

I don't like it when he says their names.

"Take me through that night, Mr O'Malley."

He leaned forward to try to engage me, but I stay disconnected, from him, from everything, so he sits back. Everything I've seen in prison dramas leads me to think he might be enjoying the straight-backed chair, that he might be more used to sitting on benches with no way of sitting back. "I was working a double," he begins, and this must be a story he's repeated over and over, it comes out so fluently, with a rhythm like a poem. "And I was tired. You won't believe how tired surgical residents get, Ms Kepner, and still keep going. I was actually dropping off over the instrument tray, so my attending told me to take a ten minute break. I went to stand outside, under the part of the roof that overhangs the automatic doors." Behind me, Theodora Altman clears her throat. O'Malley doesn't react. "I was eating a banana, getting ready to toss the skin when I heard what I thought was a car backfiring at the other end of the parking lot – but then, someone started shouting." He swallows audibly. "Could I…could I have some water?"

"Some water would be great." I echo the request because he won't get it if I don't ask, and I shouldn't care about that.

We pause while the guard who brought him in fetches water in two plastic cups, and we both drink. I know he's staring at me, probably wondering the same thing I am: why I would care, even if he went without for the rest of his life. "By the time I got there, they were already dead, but I'm a – I _was_ – a doctor. I got down on my knees, checked for radial pulses, realised there was nothing I could do for them on my own. My clothes were covered in their blood, so I got up, ran back across the parking lot towards the hospital. That's why those people thought I was running away – but I was trying to help them."

I take one slow breath.

I take another.

I open my eyes.

"Would you have killed me too?" I ask him. "We were in the same class. I'm about the same size as Reed, the same height. We even wore the same size shoe. Would you have killed me too, or was it just her? Was it just something about her and Charles?"

"I swear to you –" George O'Malley, convicted killer, clutches his plastic cup like it holds the elixir of life. "I swear to you, I didn't kill them, but if you help me, I promise to help you find out who did."

"Explicitly state what you expect from Ms Kepner," Altman orders coolly. "Because right now, what you're saying sounds like blackmail."

O'Malley makes an exasperated sound. "It's not like that! All I want from Ms Kepner – April – is for her not to oppose my appeal. I don't want her to come to court so the cameras can film her crying for her friends, the way she practically is now, and paint her as the grieving survivor, what Officer Adamson could have been if she'd been alive today, paint me as a cold-blooded killer."

"Reed would have been more than me," I say. "Much more. She would have been married by now. Maybe she would've been married to Charles by now."

"But someone took her away from you." He's trying to be gentle, but it just twists my stomach into even tighter knots. "And that wasn't fair, but neither is me being imprisoned for a crime I didn't commit. They never found the gun, April, and there's a reason for that. I heard on the news that bullets from that gun killed another police officer, and that officer died while I was locked in my cell, contemplating the next fifty years. That has to mean something to you, even if my word doesn't. I want you to take my case. I want you to find who the real cop killer is. I want you to do it for them, and for the both of us. Please!" His hand reaches across for mine, but the warden barks out a warning, and I push away from the table, preferring to fill my ears with the ugly shriek of chair legs scraping on the concrete than to let him touch me.

His big, blue, innocent eyes are dry now. "Please."

"Let me out," I snap at Theodora Altman, who raises her eyebrows but doesn't comment on the fact that _I_'_m_ daring to give _her_ orders. "I need out."

She nods, presses a button on a large white plaque. The light above the door goes red again.

I stand up. I turn my back. I open the door, and walk through it, and close it behind me, and leave George O'Malley to rot. It takes a lot not to take the route back to the office, back to the happy desk clerk who wears bright lipstick that doesn't match her job description, at a run.

Officer Ross stays silent this time.

**_~#~_**

I feel Jesus with me a lot. I feel Him beside me when I'm in trouble, I feel Him at my back when I'm doing something right. I did not feel His presence in the King County Jail, and as I press my knees into the aged leather of a kneeler and press my nose to the wood of the bench in front of me (its beeswax scent brings up memories of Sunday mornings in Moline), I still can't feel Him. Is He angry with me for not forgiving George O'Malley? Is He as human as me, so human that He can't stand the way the despair in that place seems to be sticking to my skin?

"April?"

Wood creaks beside me. I squeeze my eyes even tighter shut.

"April, are you alright?"

"You can't look at me right now," I tell him. "I'm a mess, and guys like you don't want to go to dinner with girls who are this much of a mess, so you can't look at me right now."

His arm drapes across my shoulders, and it's heavier than I expected, and for some reason that makes me want to cry even more than I did a minute ago. He's probably a superhero under his neat shirt and white collar, but I'm a Betty Brant, not a Mary Jane.

"April," says Matthew quietly. "I need you to open your eyes so I can see if you're okay. Once you've done that, I'd like you to tell me what's wrong. You don't have to, but I'd like to know, because things are never as bad as they seem, and maybe I could help you see that. After that, I'm going to drive you home."

I open my eyes (wide). "Oh no, you don't have to –"

"April," he says again. "Are you alright?"

"I can't tell you what's wrong, Matthew. I wish I could. If I were going to tell anyone, I'd tell you. It's not personal, I promise…and I really need to learn when to stop talking. I'm sorry."

"That's okay."

Matthew kisses me, and it's soft, and it's numbing. My lips go warm, then dead, like my body's shutting off everything else so I can focus on this kiss. I feel it in the funny way you feel things after you've had a cavity filled: it tingles, and there are broad strokes of feeling, but I can't quite pin down the details, can't quite describe the way it affects me (at least, not in a way anybody would understand). It confuses me, mixing in with beeswax smell and cracked leather, melting into one experience that's tinged with faith and hope and that makes me guilty to be doing this here, in his church, in front of our God.

When we separate to draw breath, his face is flushed.

Kimmie would be so proud.

"Can I take you home, April?"

Now I'm the one blushing. I know he didn't mean what it sounded like he meant – I mean, how could it – but he said what he said, and now he's blushing more than he was before, maybe more than I am.

"I didn't mean –"

"That's okay." I can hear my own heartbeat as I touch his cheek, pull back quickly like he might burn me. "My car's out front, if you don't mind driving a stick."

"First thing my dad taught me when I turned sixteen."

He doesn't just drive me to my building. He parks neatly, then comes round to open my door before I've even reached for the handle. I'm just so tired. I'm just so tired of this day, even though kissing Matthew was the best part of it, even though I'm hoping he'll kiss me again when we reach my door.

But as we turn the corner of the hall that leads to it, he stops. He sort of steps in front of me, like he's trying to shield me.

"Your friend is here," Matthew announces.

I peer round him. I'd probably shield me too, because Jackson looks like I feel. He's turned his collar up, and his cheekbones are standing out, and the shadows beneath his eyes are dark and deep. He's carrying a brown paper bag, which is funny, because I guess to Matthew, it might look he has drugs or body parts in that bag, he looks so unfriendly. Why is that? Unless he actually _has_ brought drugs or body parts, there's no reason to look like that. Tired and stressed I get, although he hasn't even heard what happened yet.

"Hey." Jackson stares straight through Matthew to me, so something is definitely not right here. "Are you okay?"

"I'm…I'm fine." I edge out from behind the broad back and shoulders sheltering me. "Matthew drove me home."

"From jail?"

"From church."

"And now, I'd like to see April safely into her apartment," Matthew puts in. "So, if you wouldn't mind…"

"I've got it." Jackson waves his bag. "I brought soup."

"April's had a really rough day."

"Whatever she's confessed to you, 'rough' doesn't even cover it."

"She hasn't told me anything, and I respect her privacy."

If I'm not getting kissed anytime soon, then I need them to go. I need something light and bright and beautiful to get me to sleep tonight, and them snapping at each other isn't in any way light or bright or beautiful. I sigh, and tug gently on my purse strap until Matthew lets go of it. I come around him, turn to face him, but his gaze is still directed over my head. I put my hand on breast pocket, even though it's presuming too much, that it's okay to touch him like that, and he lowers his head, and I smile. It's not light or bright or beautiful either, but it's enough to make him smile back. "I'll call you tomorrow," I promise. "And we can plan our date. I get the feeling you're super traditional, and I like that, and I don't want to undermine you or make you feel emasculated – but planning is my favourite thing. It's what I do best."

"That," he agrees. "And being sweet. And having that light in your eyes."

Jackson coughs over the word 'really?' I ignore him, and go up on my toes, and kiss Matthew's cheek. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

The need to double-check that we work together (that our kissing works) is trumped by the need to not put on a show for Jackson, who may have brought me soup, but who's being a jerk about it, so I really don't care what he's been through today waiting for news. _I_ actually had to go through it, so I unlock the door without saying anything, and he follows me inside without being invited, and the paper bag rustles as he sets it down on the counter, and I grip the edge of the sink and still don't say anything.

"It's French onion."

It takes him less than a minute to get bored of the silence between us.

"Why would you do that." It's not a question, it doesn't go up at the end. "You _wanted_ me to go on a date with Matthew, you tried to make him jealous of us – of _us_, when anyone who knows us knows that's insane – so he would ask me out. Why would you start acting like a child now, when things are finally starting to go right for me? When someone is _finally_ interested in me? 'Really'? _Really_, Jackson?"

His voice is strained when he answers (and he takes a long time to answer). "What do you think I've been doing all day?"

"Charming Stephanie Edwards? Doing whatever Sloans tells you to do, letting him groom you to be Captain one day?"

That's mean.

I'm not mean.

How has this turned into me being mean to him?

My natural instinct is to apologise, but when I move away from the sink, he's closer than I'd thought. He's moved closer, blocking me in, and those shadows on his face look deeper and darker than ever, and the look in his green eyes chills me. "I've been thinking about _you_," Jackson states, in a way that's dangerous because he sounds so calm. He's the last person in the world I'd ever be afraid of, but that doesn't stop the hairs from standing up on my arms. "Not Stephanie, not Sloan, you. Worrying about what you might do to yourself when you got home, because you're the kind of person who stays up all night worrying about things you can't change, beating yourself up over them, and you're the kind of person who stood in my shower not that long ago, and I knew you were crying, but I couldn't hear you. You didn't make a sound, April, you just kept on crying, and when you finally agreed to go to bed, you were still crying, and there was nothing I could do to stop you."

I jump as he raises his arms, peels off his t-shirt, stands there with his eyes on fire in his jeans and his boots, a wad of grey polycotton in his hand.

"I had to come in the stall and get you, remember? My clothes were too bloody to wear home, and all I had was this old pair of uniform dress pants, and I had to get in there with you to make you come out. You wouldn't believe you were clean. You kept scratching your arms, and I didn't know if the blood going down the drain was yours, if you'd scratched too deep." I have to touch him, to make sure that it's this that's real, that we're here and now, not then. I lay my hand on his chest the way I did on Matthew's, but this is Jackson, not Matthew, and his heart is pounding against my palm, pushing me away, and his skin is hot like he has a fever.

"I'm good," I insist. "We're good. You don't have to sit outside the shower for me anymore."

But he would.

Jackson studies me a moment longer, my hand and my wrist and my arms, scratch-free, and my neck and my face and my hair.

"Drink your soup."

He leaves as quickly and quietly as I left George O'Malley, shrugging his shirt back on as he goes (but I really doubt George O'Malley felt the way I do now). The numbness is gone, but so is the sickness. My pulse has sped up to match his heartbeat, and I can't smell beeswax anymore.

I can smell French onion soup.


	6. Recover

**6. Recover**

_The shirt thing? Really?_

_It shut you up, didn't it?_

_Hey!_

_And you drank your soup. And you listened to me._

_Who says I 'drank' my soup? I may have eaten my soup…_

_It's a liquid._

I recover, the way I always do. I treat the way visiting George O'Malley made me feel like a cold, and I drink my soup, and I curl up on my couch, and I watch bad Westerns until I fall asleep. Everything seems so much less dramatic the next morning (of course it _was_ super dramatic, but it seems like it shouldn't have been, so I guess what I mean is that everyone seriously overreacted, me included). Still, the couch feels like the safest place for me right now, so I wrap myself in a quilt and go over my paperwork, and I realise happily that I can give Matthew my report on his case tonight.

We're having dinner at eight o'clock (he called me before I could call him).

I'm running out of everything again, and have to make peace with just a banana for breakfast, hold the peel. I've just settled back on the couch when Callie calls.

"Have you eaten yet?"

"I'm about to sit down to a huge plate of waffles, thanks for asking."

"You're about to sit down to a huge plate of bullcrap."

"Are you making something better?"

I can practically hear the steam coming out of her ears.

"Get over here before I change my mind."

Once I've hung up on Callie, I text Arizona, protesting my love for the couch. She texts me back _GET OVER HERE NOW_, so it's safe to assume her phone's been confiscated. Callie's does breakfast on three days per week, although in her apartment upstairs, its owner serves up every day, Monday through Sunday. The bar does its best to look gloomy in the daytime, but it's too clean, and the bottles gleam too brightly, and there are skylights in the entryway through which you can see the sun or stars on clear days or nights.

There's only one other person in Callie's this morning. He's fair and husky, his elbows planted on the shiny surface of the bar and a plate of eggs planted between them. I recognise him, but I don't know from where, and I don't know why seeing him turns me off the waffles I planned to order (waffles I've been craving for three days straight).

"Just coffee," I say when Callie appears in front of me, a black kimono over her embroidered blouse, halfway ready for the day. "Where's Sofia this morning?"

"Arizona's got her," she informs me, her eyebrows all arched and expressive because I'm not eating properly. "She's made up her mind that she hates apples, even though she loved apples last week, even though we all went to the store together and bought her overpriced cinnamon breakfast cereal with pieces of dried apple in it. Owen," she says to the husky man, turning away from me. "Can I get you anything else?"

"Only more coffee, Torres." He smiles at her, gesturing with his fork so she knows the eggs are good. Then, he points it in my direction. "Hers is on me."

"Oh no, you don't have to –"

"I insist, Officer."

Callie smirks and sidles off. My mouth has dropped open, and my teeth clash as I snap it shut.

"Why do I know you?" I demand. "And how do you know me?"

"Owen Hunt." His palm is large and square, and its surface area could cover both of my hands earily. He has nice manners, not exerting too much pressure, not gripping in any way that might seem too personal. Owen Hunt's handshake intimates that we've shaken hands before, but it seems like he belongs to a world I now live on the fringes of, working within the law but not for it. His blue gaze misses nothing, not even my struggle to place him. "I left for a tour in Iraq around the time you left the force. I'm Chief of Police now."

"Chief," I say, slightly awed. "So you're Sloan's boss?"

He grins at me. "He doesn't like it either."

"Oh, I didn't mean –"

"I know what you meant."

He's so relaxed in his beat up jacket and jeans, so clearly an open book that it makes me suspicious. "You came here for me," I accuse.

"I came here for the eggs." He scoops another forkful to demonstrate. "But I also heard through the grapevine that you went to see George O'Malley."

"So?" I'm being rude. Why am I being so rude to him? Because I want to like him, I guess, and because he puts me on edge.

Hunt is suddenly looking right into my eyes, so intent on me and only me that I have to fight not to cringe backwards and topple off the barstool. "You left the force," he repeats. "You didn't wait to be debriefed, interviewed, or to undergo mandatory psychiatric evaluation. Your buddy Avery saw the onsite therapist for six months, said it helped, but your file doesn't list any form of counselling, before or since." Two coffee cups materialise next to his plate, but I don't even have time to say thank you before the black-kimono-ed figure disappears again. "I made a pledge when I took the job, a pledge that I would tie up loose ends," he tells me. "You're a loose end. You're my loose end now, and it seems like you're straying into deeper and deeper water."

"Too many metaphors, Chief."

His grin is back, lighting up his face. This rough-edged man is very attractive in a very non-traditional way, and his wedding band leads me to wonder what kind of non-traditional woman took him on. "Maybe." As quickly as it arrived, the smile is gone again. "But if you are suffering from posttraumatic stress, or anything of that nature – panic attacks, flashbacks, anything at all – I can help you."

"Iraq," I guess.

"Iraq."

We're silent for a moment, and I stare into the steam rising off my coffee. Just to know Owen Hunt exists, that he might feel what I feel, is blessing and burden enough. I'm recovering, though, the way I always do, so I answer his offer with a question rather than being as honest with him as he's been with me.

(I'm a coward, but I am recovering).

"Is there a reason you dug out my file?" I wrap my hands around the patterned cup that has more pink than orange on it, guessing that he'll want the more masculine of the two.

"One, another officer went down in the line of duty, and the bullets that killed him were matched to the bullets that killed Officers Percy and Adamson. You're part of that pattern."

"And two?"

"Two, the captain asked me to."

"Why? Why would he ask Sloan to talk to you about me?" I wish I'd thrown Jackson's stupid suit back in his stupid face. I'm nowhere near as angry as I was last night, and it's not like I'm about to whip my shirt off to prove a point, but I'm not exactly happy either. "Why does the whole world need to have an opinion on what I do and whom I date?"

Hunt raises his sandy eyebrows. "I'm not touching the dating thing," he says. "And besides, I already knew you'd been to see O'Malley before Captain Sloan approached me on Avery's behalf." I raise my eyebrows to match his, and he adds, "I have a contact at Grey, Shepherd and Yang."

"Oh."

He picks up the cup that has more orange than pink on it. "But I'm definitely not touching the dating thing, Kepner, sorry."

Is it acceptable to ask your boyfriend for a cheque for your professional services? What about if your client isn't technically your boyfriend, and your services aren't the kind people usually ask awkward moral questions about? I chew on this, along with the last bite of a muffin Callie forced on me on my way out of her bar, on the journey up to my office. Before I can walk down the stretch of hall between the elevator and my front door, however, I catch sight of something that makes me freeze – well, actually, someone, and the thing she's holding is even stranger than the fact she's there at all.

"Good morning, April," says Meredith evenly, proffering the cupcake she has cupped between her hands like a holy offering.

"Uh," I reply.

"You're probably wondering why I would bring you a cupcake, since I bitched you out the last time we saw each other."

"No…"

"You're right to wonder that. When Derek dropped me off at that bakery this morning, I kept saying to myself, 'why in the world would I think taking Kepner a cupcake was a good idea?' But then I realised I hadn't been considerate of your feelings when I recommended you to George." She calls him 'George' like they're old friends, and the name doesn't sound unfamiliar when she says it anymore. "Your friends are dead," Meredith reminds me bluntly. "And even though George didn't do it, you think he did, and it must have still been hell for you to go visit him."

"I…"

"So I got you this cupcake, and I'm going to send you everything Cristina and I think you'll need: witness statements, physical evidence, everything down to his yearbook and his mother's cell." She smiles, and her feline features are, as always, really pretty and really annoying. The cupcake she's holding out to me is red velvet, and I know I've just eaten a muffin, and I know she basically lives on salad and only eats takeout once in a blue moon, but I have heart belongs to red velvet, and I'm not going to let Meredith Grey get in the way of our love.

"Thank you," I say, and take it from her. "Is…how is…how is _George_?"

A flicker crosses her face at the way I say his name, which is nothing like the way she says it. "He has complete faith that you'll do a good job, if only because you hate him so much. You want to find him guilty, so you'll pick apart every detail of the case trying to prove that he is, searching for evidence the police never found. He remembers you from the public gallery," she tells me. "He was sorry his imprisonment didn't get you justice, or even any peace. He's still sorry."

"Remorse might get his sentence lightened."

"He should never have been sentenced at all."

She really believes he's innocent. She's so cool and effective, and she's won so many cases, and she genuinely believes George O'Malley is innocent.

"Thanks for the cupcake," I say, and step around her into my office.

The first thing I do is call Bailey.

"Miranda Bailey, someone had better be dying."

"I followed your breadcrumbs." This around a mouthful of cake crumbs. "'Oh, April, why don't you go look into this bloody murder for me? Oh, April, why don't you bump into the cops on scene? Oh, April, why don't you find out about the recent death in the line of duty and link it to the deaths of your friends?' You're slippery, Bailey." There's cream cheese frosting on my lower lip and on the receiver, but it's hard to be ladylike with red velvet on the line.

"I'm _what_?"

Uh-oh.

"You're slippery," I persist, because apparently, I have a death wish. "You knew if you asked me outright to investigate George O'Malley's case, I'd say no, so you took me by the nose and led me to him, and now I have his mother's cell phone number, and Meredith Grey is emailing me case files, and I'm out! I never asked to be in, so I am _out_!"

A pause.

"You're in, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You can't stop yourself."

"I can't stop myself." Admitting it to Bailey is not the same as admitting it to myself, so half of me is still pretending a cupcake is just a cupcake, and that I'm not mentally preparing myself not just to bring up bodies, but to sit with them on the couch like Jeffrey Dahmer. "George O'Malley is guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree, and if there's something I can do to make sure he pays for it, then it's worth the time and effort." I don't mention the hurt, because I can't tell if it's worth the hurt yet. Something is already happening to me and Jackson, to 'Japril', waffle buddies and former colleagues. The further back in time I go, they worse it's going to get.

"You done, Kepner?"

"Yes."

"Wrong. The right answer is no, because no, you are not done." Bailey is mad. I imagine her behind her desk, sitting in her super expensive swivel chair (it was super expensive because it had to be altered so her feet could touch the ground), giving her pin board crazy eyes on my behalf. "You're not done hating a man who might be innocent, who might be undeserving of your hatred. You're not done carrying Percy and Adamson around as chips on your shoulder, 'I don't want to be a police officer anymore, I have dead friends', 'I don't want to move on and be happy, I have dead friends', 'I don't want to make the most of the people I love who are _alive_, two of the people I loved are dead'. Jesus taught you the only way to achieve forgiveness is by forgiving, or had you forgotten about that?"

"Bailey –"

"No buts. You go to church?"

"Yes…"

"You got a pastor?"

"Sort of."

"Then maybe you should see what he thinks about forgiveness."

"Maybe I will."

"And April?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe you should think about forgiving yourself too."

"For what?"

"For surviving."

Another pause.

"I'm _glad_ to have survived, Bailey." I insist. "I'm so glad that I get to breathe and eat and watch TV and go to work. I'm glad I wasn't the one whose parents had to be called." Charles just had his mom, whose face was hard and who looked like she'd seen too much of death already; Reed had the full complement of parents, a mother who'd been punky and rebellious in her twenties (and had two fairies tattooed who knew where), and a father with glasses he kept taking off, polishing and putting back on again.

The lenses were smeared with tears.

"Happy and grateful aren't the same thing," she informs me enigmatically, and hangs up.

There's a chunk of cupcake left in its pretty red wrapper, but I don't really feel like eating it. I log into my email instead, and scan the list of witnesses Meredith has sent me, witnesses I have no legal right to contact, but whom I will anyway: Sydney Heron. Gary Clark. Mary Portman. Eli Lloyd. I close my hand around the last of the peace offering cupcake, and squash it into nothing. It helps, a little.

A doctor.

A security guard.

A patient.

A nurse.

It's Eli Lloyd's day off, a luxury to which he'd like to become accustomed, or so he tells me. He must be handsome, because his voice is rich, and nine hours sleep means he practically purrs at the end of words. "I've heard your name," he says after I introduce myself. "Aren't you the PI Miranda gets to do her dirty work?" He's too dreamy for me to be offended, so I ask him how he knows Bailey, since I've never heard anyone call her Miranda. "We went out a few times," Eli replies, his tone casual. "We had sex a few more times."

I choke on my coffee.

Eli doesn't really remember the night of the shooting, only that he saw George O'Malley heading for the back of the parking lot and running back a minute or so later, covered in blood. "If it had been any other place." I can almost hear him shaking his head. "I swear, if it had been any other parking lot, Ms Kepner, we'd have gotten to them faster. But a hospital? Everyone's covered in blood, and everyone's yelling about needing help. Hospitals are actually the worst place to be in an emergency, until a doctor gets assigned to your case and shoos away the interns gawking at your broken bone, or your ruptured spleen, or taking bets on what the foreign body is and where you stuck it." He chuckles. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

"You've already been so helpful. Thank you."

"Any time…except Monday through Sunday, fifty weeks a year."

Sydney Heron moved to Chattanooga, and cheerfully enlightens me about the fact she doesn't talk to the press. I pinkie swear down the line that I'm not a reporter, but she doesn't buy it, and hangs up as cheerily as she answered.

Mary Portman is dead – of natural causes, thank God.

Obviously, not thank God that she's dead.

But, you know not _not_ thank God for taking her into His grace.

Gary Clark picks up on the first ring. He's a little gravelly, and only a few years younger than my dad. I address him as 'sir', introduce myself, and work my way round to what he remembers about the night Charles and Reed died.

"What a storm," he begins fondly, as if it were a personal friend of his. "It rained and rained that night, and I did not envy the officers walking the streets…I used to be one of them, SPD for twenty five years, but I had to give it up when my back gave out and I couldn't race around like I used to…anyway, one hell of a storm that night. I'd just gone outside to light a cigarette when I saw that – what was his name? – that George O'Malley running across the blacktop, and I called out for him to stop, else he'd trip and do himself an injury. He didn't stop, though. He was covered in blood, from his neck down to his knees, and his eyes…the only word I can use, Miss, is dead. They were wide and flat, and just as dead as the eyes of that poor girl who was shot, only hers were brown. His were wide and flat and blue, and I'll never forget how they looked…I'll never forget that night, not a single detail, and you can tell the judge to call on me when O'Malley's fancy lawyers get him back in court. I'll even point out the murderer, if he wants me to, and say, 'that's him, Your Honour, there he is'." He chuckles quietly, just like Eli did. "'There he is'."

No one else seems keen to condemn George O'Malley, no one except me and Gary Clark, and I can't count on me anymore. I type up our conversation once I've said thank you three times and goodbye twice, and now off my couch and back in work mode again, I kind of regret letting the rest of that cupcake go.

And then I remember I'm having dinner with Matthew tonight.

Because it's my first date with Matthew tonight.

So who needs red velvet?

_**~#~**_

_What do you wear on a first date with a minister?_

_I have the answer…_

_And the answer is…_

_And the answer is I'm not a girl, ask someone else._

_But you're a guy! You've been on dates with girls!_

_You should wear pants._

Jackson's right, I should ask someone else, but I don't have the time. What I have is a cute dress in dark pink-purple with black, and a little black straw purse. The weather is unseasonable, mild, clear. I can see the stars as I spritz perfume along my collarbone, gazing out of the window up at them like a love-struck teenager. If I focus hard enough, and close my ears to everything else, I think I can hear them singing.

Or is that my heart singing?

(I'm aware I'm being ridiculous, but I don't go on dates very often).

_Are you wearing pants?_

_I'm wearing a dress._

_As a guy who's been on dates with girls, I recommend pants._

_We're going to dinner, not hiking!_

_Your legs will get cold._

_Goodnight, Jackson :-)_

My insides are fizzing too loudly for me to remember that I'm supposed to be mad with Jackson for insinuating to first Sloan, then Hunt that my home address is Crazyville. He meant well, of that I'm absolutely certain. I'm not certain about anything else, if I've put on too much scent, if I should've gotten my hair blown out, if it's the end of the world as we know it. That's not necessarily a bad thing: tonight could be the start of something which I think has already started and needs not to stop, the end of my world as I know it. Tonight could be the start of someone other than my best friend reminding me to buy cereal or to warm up before I jog. Tonight could be everything or nothing, and I can't wait to find out which.

Matthew knocks on my door at eight o'clock sharp, and I inhale at the sight of him. He's wearing a maroon shirt that nearly matches my dress, and a dark tie, and perfectly pressed slacks. He bends down to kiss my cheek, and I smell the clean smell of soap, and he must be able to smell the floral scent of my perfume, and the thought makes me shiver.

"You look lovely."

"Thank you. So do you. I mean –" I raise my hand, cut myself off before I can hit my rambling stride. "Let me just grab my purse."

The restaurant is called Caravaggio's, and Matthew seems to know the entire staff. The chef even comes out of the kitchen to greet us, black hair exploding out from beneath his hat and peeking above the collar of his jacket. He's the son of the owner, a tiny Italian lady with chins on her chins and brown eyes stretched into slits from smiling. She kisses Matthew loudly, and then she takes my hands and squeezes them so hard that the bones complain. "At last," she booms, and every head in the room turns our way. "A girlfriend for my skinny American."

We're seated at a table in the window, so the whole word can stop and stare at our date if they want to.

"Sorry."

Our eyes meet over our menus, and I flush. Matthew grins self-consciously.

"I used to come here every night when I was first posted to Seattle, before I learned to take care of myself. Elena got attached."

There's even a candle in a Chianti bottle, and it reminds me of Disney movies and dogs in love, and my face must be the colour of Elena's son's marinara by the time I'm done being reminded and being embarrassed and have something to say. "It must be nice, to have a mom away from home."

"'A mom away from home', what a great way of putting it."

Sweat actually pops on my forehead. What's wrong with me? It must be the memory of kissing him, of the sweet numbness that flowed through me, of the sudden stillness in my busy mind. It's neither the time nor the place to kiss him right now – Elena would probably start baking our wedding cake – not that I've ever initiated a kiss. All I can do is hope for the best, and not eat anything too noxious. They have pasta with chilli butter and parmesan and pungent, garlicky sausage that makes my mouth water, but I order a tricolore salad and ignore the the waiter, a lanky, seventeen year old relative of Elena's, gawping at me like I have an extra head.

Mind over matter, kisses over calories.

I keep right on fizzing inside, and we have a great date. We talk about Seattle, the grey beauty of it under the constant cover of rainclouds; we talk about our jobs, and I gently nudge his file across the table when the moment seems right (the thief is underage, overindulged by her parents, and will most likely never be punished, but I've never not closed a case); we talk about our families, and I'm glad to hear he seems to be as close to his as I am to mine.

Glad.

Grateful.

Happy.

Take that, Miranda Bailey.

Matthew kisses me outside my apartment, a touch more fiercely than before. I still can't describe, not even to myself, how exactly I feel when we kiss and why exactly I feel the way I do. It confuses me, being in the moment enough to appreciate the weirdness of pressing your lips to someone else's and, at the same time, being gone enough that the weirdness isn't that weird at all. We bump noses a couple of times, finding our way around each other, and I give a little sigh as he pulls away.

"Goodnight, April."

"Goodnight, Matthew."

I unlock my door and take a step inside, then turn around to watch him go. He's standing at the end of the hall, and his expression is a little goofy and a lot of wonderful.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he says.

"Are you one of the guys who says they'll call tomorrow and then decides to play hard to get, or are you really going to call me tomorrow?"

"April."

"Yes?"

"I'm really going to call you tomorrow."

I have to close the door then, so he can't see how widely I'm smiling. I should take off my dress. I should shower. I should go to bed, but I can tell I'm going to make it to lying down and then I'm going to pull my knees up to my chest and giggle and wriggle and behave like a thirteen year old, and all because a boy kissed me at my door and didn't even try to get invited in (_because a gentleman kissed me at my door_, I amend). Instead of walking further into my living room, I backtrack out into the hall, swishing my hair like a shampoo commercial and quickstepping towards the elevator.

_Where are you?_

_Are you okay?_

_Just tell me where you are._

_April, are you okay?_

_Just tell me where you are!_

_Callie's._

Callie's playing that old Starship song when I walk in, and she huffs in my direction. I only saw her this morning, but until she and Arizona decide to have another baby, I'm pretty sure I'm the least capable person she knows. I suspect she secretly believes every second I spend out of her sight is a second where I'm making a fool of myself, getting into trouble or being carried to the top of the Space Needle by a giant gorilla.

Jackson's at the bar, nursing a beer. He's wearing a light denim shirt, and his back is to me. I creep towards him, full to the brim with news, too full to be angry about now what I couldn't be angry about earlier. Even at the end of a long day, he doesn't slouch, or only an inch or so. If I were a criminal, I could make him from the way he's sitting alone.

_Cop_.

Impulsively, I wrap my arms around his ribs. I squeeze, but I'm not strong enough to make him catch his breath. He knows it's me, because of my perfume or my unpolished nails, who knows which. I pillow my cheek on him, forgiving and forgetting in one exhalation, rocking slightly in time to the music and feeling him rock along with me, his breathing only slightly out of step with mine. There are a lot of things I could live without, but my bathtub and his friendship are as vital as oxygen and Cheerios.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For Matthew. For Hunt."

His ribs expand, spreading my fingers of their own accord. He's about to say something in reply, but that's when pretty rookie cop Stephanie Edwards (and no, she's not wearing pants either) comes out of the ladies' room, narrows her eyes and begins to make her pretty rookie way across the bar towards us.

"Oh my God."

"April…"

_Step back_, April, I order myself. _Twice an idiot in Callie's_.

"So I guess we're both dating again," I say, letting him go. My voice sounds accusatory, but that's probably because it is. Here I am, hurting on his behalf because I thought he was still in love with the girl he couldn't have, when he's actually buying vodka tonics for Stephanie Edwards and her purple sweater which fits like a glove.

Hasta la vista, Lexie Grey.

Jackson turns around, his face a little scrunchy. "It's not a date," he insists, but quietly.

"It's totally a date."

"I'm not interested in Stephanie Edwards."

"If you're not interested in Stephanie Edwards, then why don't you want Stephanie Edwards to hear that you're not interested in Stephanie Edwards?"

He gives me a long, level look. "How was your date with the priest?"

"Minister, and it was lovely."

"Great."

"Great."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"If there were someone I wanted, someone without a boyfriend or a husband or baggage," Jackson says carefully. "Then I would date her. Other than that, I'm not 'dating again'." He picks up his beer, takes a drink, and is simultaneously so objectively attractive and so subjectively annoying that I wish Lexie were here, if only so I could use her to smack him with.

"Maybe you should," I suggest, and maybe I sound condescending, but maybe he deserves condescending. "It really is lovely."

"Maybe I will."

"Great."

"Great."

"Fine."

"Fine."


	7. Ninety Nine Red Balloons

**7. Ninety Nine Red Balloons  
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He follows me home. I make a point of not looking in his direction for even a second of the half hour longer I stay, playing darts with some nurses from Seattle Grace – they're always tired, but they're always ready and able to drink anyone under the table, and they grumble good-naturedly at me when I say no.

The Jeep revs behind me, and I stare fixedly at the vaguely offensive car sticker on the bumper of the car in front rather than accidentally meet his gaze in the rear-view. I may have mentioned that Jackson's eyes are green, and that some (not me) have referred to them as 'hypnotic'. For the first few hours of knowing him, it feels like there's this constant pressure to say something funny or smart, just to offset the amount of attention he's paying you, and all because of those eyes.

I don't want to feel pressure to do what he wants me to do, which is speed up. I drive within the limits of the law all the way home, but my triumph only lasts as long as it takes me to realise if you want to keep someone out of your house, you really shouldn't give them a key.

"I'm home," I state, hanging up my keys on the hook beside the door. "There are no monsters under the bed I need you to scare away."

Jackson ignores me. What he does is walk straight past me, into my kitchen, and open the cupboard above the stove. That makes me madder, since _I_ can't reach that cupboard without a footstool, and I am woman, hear me roar, but he's six foot one, and that trumps womanhood when I need rice or dried pasta. Jackson doesn't go for either of these. He gets out a packet of microwave popcorn, pulls the tabs, and puts it in the oven. Then, he risks my wrath even further by going into my secret sweet stash (cupboard under the window, behind the canned goods) and taking out two packs of Twizzlers, one red, one black. Finally, he gets two sodas from the fridge, puts ice in two glasses, and sets them down beside the candy.

"Uh…what are you doing?"

He turns to face me, propping his elbows on the countertop. "You're mad because you think I'm into Stephanie," he says calmly. "When I'm supposed to be into Lexie, and if you can convince yourself I'm still into Lexie, that Lexie broke my heart, then nothing has to change." His mouth sort of screws up at 'broke my heart'. Jackson doesn't like emotions very much, and he's had to be more emotional in the past few weeks than he's probably ever been in his entire life. "You don't like change, April. You're getting into something real with Matthew, and maybe he's not going to be okay with how much time you spend with another guy, and maybe if I were dating someone, she wouldn't be okay with how much time I spend with another girl." I hate his logic, and the knowing way he talks to me: like he can see right through me and out the other side. "So you're not mad, not really."

"Oh?" I plant my hands on my hips (yes, I know that makes even the most sophisticated woman look like a five year old, and I'm never the most sophisticated woman). "Why don't you tell me how I feel, Jackson, since you obviously have better insight than I do?"

His mouth sort of scrunches again. "You're worried about our friendship bubble popping. What will happen to us if we have other people to have breakfast with or go to the movies with? It's not like we work together anymore. It's not like it isn't easy to get tangled up in someone else."

"That doesn't explain why you're raiding my kitchen."

This time, there's no scrunching, just a shrug and a half-smile. "It's movie night."

"You think I want to watch movies with you?"

"I _know_ you want to watch movies with me. Come on." He beckons with the Twizzlers. "Who else is going to let you talk through the whole thing?"

I take my hands off my hips, but only so I can fold my arms across my chest. "No one _lets _me do anything."

"April."

The lights are on half-brightness, and we both have a little halo around us, gold against the grey light of the moon filtering through clouds. Jackson stands in my kitchen like he owns it, like he lives here, like my secret stash is his secret stash. I wonder if he's right. I was happy for him when he was dating Lexie, glad he'd found someone – but I hadn't. Nothing had to change for me, because I kind of knew her and she kind of knew our history, and she wasn't the type of girl to freak out about her boyfriend hanging out with other girls. Her Sloan, on the other hand? Callie told me Lexie once asked her how gay she was (on a scale of one to gay, apparently), since Mark is Sofia's dad and Callie's best friend, so it's one hundred percent guaranteed they've had sex in the past, and what's to stop them from doing it again in the future?

Lexie herself, of course. No one who ever saw Mark and Lexie together could doubt the way they feel is forever; they orbit around each other like there's more than gravity and chemistry between them.

By the time I've gone over all this in my mind, at least thirty seconds have passed. Jackson's taken a step towards me, but his expression hasn't changed.

"I want to watch _From Here to Eternity_."

"And I don't."

"But you will."

"Yeah."

I slipped sideways while I was asleep. Jackson had his feet in my lap from halfway through the first movie, the way he always does, and I must've slid down the couch cushion towards him in the night. The reason I know this is because I can hear his heartbeat in my ear when I wake up, and then I smell the laundry detergent on his sweater and the leather of the couch, and then I have to come to terms with the fact my head is on his chest, and he's playing with my hair for something to do.

"Is this weird?" I ask in a whisper.

"No." He's petting me like a cat, smoothing the hair back from the crown of my head, messing with the ends. "Don't change this back the way it was."

"Red is better?"

"Red is better. More alive."

That reminds me of what Bailey said, about forgiving myself for being alive.

"Is it morning?"

"No." His hand moves the hair off the back of my neck, just brushing the nape. "Go back to sleep."

I show I hear and obey by butting my head against his shoulder until he gives me a little more surface area, but I keep my eyes shut, because I don't know what might happen if I opened them right now.

I don't know what I'd see if I looked at him right now.

_**~#~**_

"Woah, there – oh, it's you."

"Officer Wilson."

Jo rolls her eyes at me. They're pretty and expertly lined, even though she's going to be working until the crack of dawn, even though they're just going to end up all smudgy. "Don't be weird. Are you here to see your boyfriend?"

"No," I retort. "And I'm not here to see yours either."

When I woke up, five hours after waking up the first time, my head was propped up by three throw pillows (a little excessive, but it's the thought that counts) and Jackson was gone. He left his cereal bowl in the sink, so at least I knew movie night hadn't been a mirage. I have the luxury of getting up when I like and going into my office only when I want to – which is not today, since there were two cheques in the mail this morning: one from the dreamy Pastor Matthew, and one from the Klein family, whose case I wrapped up a few weeks ago – but not everyone is so lucky. Cops go in early, earlier if they've got something hot, and Jackson likes to run, so that means his day starts even earlier.

She rolls her eyes again. "Shut up. Can I help you with something, or shall I just go ahead and charge you with wasting my time?"

"I'm actually here to see your chief. Do you know if he's around?"

"No, but Adele will. Mrs Webber!"

Adele Webber may be getting slightly slower every day, but her mind is sharp as a tack. She's sitting behind a desk to our left, sorting a pile of papers, and her head snaps up like someone just cracked a whip. "Officer?"

"Is Chief Hunt here?"

"Who's asking?"

"Kepner, P.I. is here to see him."

Her broad cheeks lift up and out in a smile. "Hi, honey. Let me just call up and check for you."

"Thanks, Mrs Webber."

"That's _Adele_, young lady."

"It's Mrs Webber to me," Jo grouses.

"Hey," I say suddenly. "Do you want to do something?"

She raises her (gorgeous) eyebrows. "Sorry, Kepner, but I don't swing that way."

"I mean something fun."

"Still don't swing that way."

"I mean like girls' night." Her eyebrows climb higher up her forehead, but I soldier on (some people say I'm not good at reading social cues, but they're wrong – I read them, and I understand people are being irritated or freaked out by what I'm saying, but I say it anyway, because I have no self-control). "We could go to Callie's, have some drinks, I could invite the lawyers from upstairs…" _Stephanie_. "And Arizona..." _And Stephanie_. "And if I invite Meredith Grey, I have to invite Lexie Grey too…" _And if I invite Jo Wilson_,_ I have to invite…_ "You could totally invite someone too. You're friends with Avery's rookie, right?"

"Steph? Girls' night? With you?" Slowly, her brow clears, and an expression of amusement spreads itself over her face like butter over hot toast (which means it makes it even better, and I would rather eat her than let her live another second looking like that). "You know what? I think that sounds like a great idea."

"The chief's taking an early lunch," Adele announces. "You can go right up, April."

"Thank you, Mrs Webber."

"Adele!"

"I'll call you." Jo flicks an imaginary piece of lint off my shoulder. It must be part of her job description to ensure only the most presentable private investigators enter that hallowed elevator. "Or I'll get Alex to call you. He hates talking to people. It'll be hilarious."

"You realise he's your superior, right?"

"Sure he is."

She's smirking to herself as the elevator doors close, and so am I. I can't tell if it's working in such a pressured environment, but love works like a time bomb around here. There's only ever so long before someone explodes (not in the way that sounded), grabs someone else by the hair and kisses them silly. I guess you have to make up your mind about people fast when there's even the slightest chance you might die by their side.

Or, around here, the strongest chance.

Owen Hunt is sitting beside his desk, which is huge. It cuts the room in half, and it's a mess. The grey walls are covered with posters, pictures and coloured tape, papered with those loose ends he told me about. I tap on the door, despite its being wide open, and he raises his head and beckons me in and sits me down all before I can say a word. No wonder he made chief so young, with that kind of deadly efficiency.

You can take the man out of the warzone, but you can't take the soldier out of the man.

"What can I do for you?" He asks, once I have a cup of the industrial grade sludge cops call coffee in my hand.

"A couple of things, actually, if you have the time."

"I'll find the time. Shoot."

I wince at his choice of words. "First, Sydney Heron." I push a folder across the desk, weaving between the various memos and rap sheets littering its surface. There's a photo in a silver frame angled away from me, and I nosily want to see who I assume is his wife. "I can't get her to talk to me, and while I can't see her as the shooter, she has a history of mental instability, highs and lows, could be bipolar disorder. Her colleagues described her as hardworking but almost too happy. She got on people's nerves."

Owen chuckles. "You sound like my wife, accusing people of murder just because they dare to be cheerful. Also," he adds gently. "Violence is not a recognised symptom of any known mental disorder."

"But people with bipolar can be unstable," I press. "Highly reactive, with delusions of grandeur –"

"And they can also be ordinary people who rise a little higher and fall a little lower than the rest of us." He sits back in his chair and studies his own coffee cup for a moment, trying to hide what I suspect is amusement. "But I'll see what I can do about Doctor Heron, even if it's just getting her to confirm her to confirm the statement she made at the time was factual."

"Thank you."

"But you mentioned a couple of things." His voice lowers, suggesting he already has a pretty good idea about what the other thing is, and he's right. I fight it. I stare at my lap. I stare into my coffee. After a minute, I give up and stare at him, doing my best to stare right through him and out of the window behind him.

"You said you could help me."

"I believe I can."

"How?" I blurt. "Tell me. Show me."

Hunt breathes out, long and low. "Focus on your breathing," he instructs me. "Nice, deep, breaths. Don't start hyperventilating. Keep it deep, keep it even." I do as he does, the way they teach you in yoga class, in through my nose, out through my mouth. "Good. Now, while you're maintaining that breathing pattern, I want you to walk me through the night of the shooting. Start from when you heard something was wrong. When you get to a hard part, you're going to breathe through it. Stop if you have to, take a breath, and then carry on. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

He shows me his open palms. "Go ahead."

"I was eating eggs," is the first thing that comes out, not that it matters. "I hadn't had anything to eat all day, and the cafeteria was closing, but I managed to get a plate of eggs out of the woman who was closing the shutters. I don't even like eggs, but they were warm, and I was starving. I was on my own when I heard the call come in – the hospital had called us, of course – and I can't explain how or why, but I _had_ to go too. It wasn't even my call to take, which was why Jackson was there too. My hands were shaking, the car ended up halfway across the sidewalk, but no one was worrying about me. What they were all worried about – what they were all focused on like their lives depended on it –" I sound brittle like glass, so I do as I was told, and take a breath, and go on. "Reed was shot in the head, right in the centre of her forehead. She was on her back. Charles had fallen forwards because he'd been running towards her, or towards the shooter, and they were both surrounded by these pools, actual _pools_ of blood. It looked black, but I knew it was red." I did my damnedest not to, but I'm hyperventilating. I can smell it, and that's the worst part. You can't help but smell it when there's that much.

He gets it.

"What's a good smell, April? What's something you like the scent of?"

"Leather," I answer at random. "Ripe pears. Laundry detergent."

"Pick one. You can only smell that one smell, do you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"What happened next?"

"I started walking towards them." It felt like the soles of my shoes were weighted down, at least at first. "Then, I started running. Reed was so tiny, and for some reason, I got it into my head that meant the holes in her would be tiny too. I have really small hands, I thought I could plug them and she would wake up, and they could take her into the hospital." I splay my fingers. "It was stupid. I pushed people out of the way, I got closer, I slipped in the blood. I fell. I hit the ground on my hands and knees. I reached out for her, and I managed to get my arm beneath her shoulders. I was covered in her blood. People kept trying to pull me away, but I was too focused on Reed. I said horrible things to them, words I didn't even know I knew."

"But you let Avery pull you away."

A laugh becomes a cough in my tight throat. "I didn't _let_ him. I kicked. I screamed. When we got back here, someone else had to help him out of his bloody clothes, because he had to hold me still while their bodies were carried past. He had to strap me into the car and keep one hand on the buckle so I didn't make a break for it. He wasn't even wearing a shirt. All they could find for him in lost and found was a pair of dress pants. He took me into his bathroom. He took off my clothes." I swallow, but neither imagining the scent of laundry detergent nor the taste of dill pickles can make it easy. "I'd stopped yelling, so he decided I would be okay to shower on my own. He sat on the other side of the partition, waited until he realised I'd been in there too long, which was a while after the water went cold. I couldn't get them off me." _Laundry detergent_, I remind myself. _Laundry detergent_. "So I kept scrubbing myself, and then I started scratching myself, and in the end, Jackson had to haul me out of there too. I was crying, and my knees wouldn't lock. I couldn't stand up. We were on the bathroom floor for two hours before I agreed to go to bed."

"Did you sleep?"

I take a breath.

I go on.

"It wasn't really sleeping, more zoning. He was talking about – what was he talking about? Recipes for seafood. I hate seafood, and he wouldn't shut up about linguini with clams. When I was awake, if that was being awake, I wouldn't shut up about linguini with clams either. We promised each other that when we left the force – not that we discussed why exactly we'd leave the force – we'd run away to Italy and train to be chefs, specialising exclusively in linguini with clams." I laugh for real this time. "How bad is it that I can't even stand the sight of clams now? Even when other people are eating them, even though I'm absolutely fine with linguini. How is that even possible?"

And now I can't stop laughing.

Great.

"Kepner? Can you still smell detergent?"

"I –" I can, and it's sharp at the same time as it's powdery, tickling my nose. "Yes, sir."

"Good. That's very good." To my surprise, Hunt leans across the battlefield of his desk to take my hand. Mine feels small and cold in his grasp, which is rough and warm and comforting. To my surprise, he turns the silver-framed picture to face me. "Recognise her?"

"_Cristina_?" I squeak. "Cristina Yang is your –"

"Wife," he puts in helpfully. "Reluctantly, I'll admit. It took years to wear her down. For at least one of those years, she was suffering from PTSD, just like you." I'm not sure I want to hear this, but he shows no sign of stopping. "Cristina's parents divorced when she was very young, and she was very close to her father even though her mother got custody. She went to visit him in L.A., and he promised her the best sliders she'd ever had – she really likes burgers," he tells me conspiratorially, as if anyone doesn't. "Anyway, they were on their way to the restaurant, and there was an accident. Cristina was fine, just cuts and bruises, but her dad had gone through the windshield. She tried to keep his chest closed until the ambulance got there. She felt his heart stop." He's far away from me now, with her, compassion written in every line of his face. "And it took her a long time to get over that. How would you describe her, before you knew about her father? What's her personality like?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"Uh…bitchy. Mean. Snarky."

"There you go." Smiling again, Hunt releases me. "Everything goes back to the way it was. You just need some time, and somebody willing to help. I'm willing to help you, April, with this and with your case. Will you let me help you? Help me tie up another loose end?"

He's not offering just so I can be neatly squared away somewhere, and we're both aware of that fact.

_Laundry detergent_.

In through my nose, out through my mouth.

"I'd like that." Cristina's happy in that photograph, in a long red dress, her hair piled on top of her head. She's living proof what he's selling works, at least for some people.

"Good. Six AM, the park near the hospital. We walk."

"But –"

"Six AM, Kepner. Let's not make it five."

_**~#~**_

"Explain that to me again?"

We're on my couch, Matthew and I, on my beautiful new couch, and I'm holding a bottle of red wine like it's the blood of a prophet and I'd rather spill my own blood than a single drop (honestly, I probably would, this couch was super expensive). I prefer white, when I drink wine at all, but there's no point opening two bottles. Most of all, I'm enjoying just being with him, sitting opposite one another, each of us with one leg tucked beneath us, the foot of the other resting on the floor.

"Chief Hunt is going to help me." _With my posttraumatic stress disorder _– _run for the hills, you're in the apartment of a crazy person_! "With my running. I've always wanted to do a marathon, and who better than a mountain-climbing army vet to be my trainer?"

"Are mountain-climbing and running a marathon really that similar?" He's wearing a dark blue shirt and the most adorable look of confusion; I lean over and kiss him. I feel _compelled_ to lean over and kiss him. It must be the power of my awesome couch, because I then have to rest my head against his shoulder when we're done kissing, and tell him it's okay to touch my hair, he doesn't have to worry about messing it up. I have this thing about people touching my hair.

"Okay." Matthew chuckles. "You've won me over."

"But I didn't even try that hard!"

"By all means." He pulls me closer. "Try again."

To learn anything, you need practice, multiple exposures to whatever you're supposed to be learning. I've only been exposed to the line between kissing and taking clothes off once or twice in my life, and one of those times was with Alex Karev, and I'd really rather forget it happened at all. Here and now, it doesn't register when we've crossed that line. I've crawled into Matthew's lap, his thighs framing my thighs, gripping his shoulders while he grips my waist. The wine and the movement of his lips from my mouth to my neck start a sparkle inside me, and I say '_oh_', very low and very soft, before I can stop myself. As soon as I do, Matthew pulls away.

"What? Did I do something?"

"No, no – April, you're – no." He pushes back the hair that flops over his forehead and looks rueful. "I wish there were an easy way to say this." _Oh God_, is my immediate thought. _He_'_s breaking up with you_. _But why_? _Because you_'_re crazy_? _Because you maybe have PTSD_? _Because you sleep with other men_ (_not like that_) _and he somehow knows_?! "April," says Matthew, holding me by the elbows, rubbing his thumbs over the weave of my shirt. "I made a vow almost before I knew what a vow was. I promised God that I would save myself for the woman I would spend the rest of my life with." Wait, what? Is he saying what it sounds like he's – "I'm a virgin, April," he announces to me and the dimly lit apartment. "And I don't plan on changing that anytime soon. If that doesn't fit with your idea of how our relationship should be, I completely understand. No hard feelings."

..._thank you_, _God_, _for sending this man into my life_.

_Seriously_.

_This is like a home run in prayer answering terms_.

_Also_, _hallelujah_.

_Also_, _amen_.

"Matthew," I breathe, and kiss him again. "Me too," I murmur against him. "Oh, Matthew, me too."

"You too? Really? But you're…you're _you_." He brushes back a lock of hair from my temple, his knuckles bumping the top of my cheekbone. "You're effervescent. You're beautiful. You're –"

"Shut up."

We manage another seven minutes in Heaven someone knocks on my door.

"Don't answer it," he implores.

I giggle. "I have to, it might be work. Let me up."

He does, and he's not even grudging about it. He'd do anything I asked him to right now, and that gives me a hit of power which takes me all the way to the door with a spring in my step. I'm still beaming as I slide back the deadbolt and open up.

"Kepner."

_What the heck_, _God_?

Mark Sloan is in my hallway, all tall and scruffy and sexy with his salt and pepper hair and his strong jaw and his even stronger arms. Lexie's with him, looking both smug and sheepish, tucked under his arm. "Kepner," he barks again. He's wearing this great leather jacket and I'm already sparkling low in my belly, so I don't beat myself up too much about wondering what's underneath it. Sloan is hot, but in a really objective way. He's museum-worthy hot, with a sign warning you not to touch the exhibits.

"Captain," I acknowledge. "Lexie."

"Hi, April."

"Can I help you with something? I don't want to be rude, it's just I have guests, and –"

"Avery?" He asks hopefully.

"No."

This is clearly the highlight of Lexie's week. "Would you step into the hall for a minute?" She's biting her lower lip, doing her best to keep from laughing. "Mark has something he wants to say to you."

I take a step back into my apartment, but just to put the door on the chain and reassure Matthew everything's okay, that my callers are acquaintances rather than axe murderers. Then, I close the door on him, turn to them, and raise my eyebrows expectantly. "Well?"

"You and Avery are tight," Mark begins.

"He's my best friend."

"So you could say he's your…_buddy_."

Lexie actually snorts.

"You could, although I can't see why you would."

"I was just wondering," says Sloan, swinging his free arm back and forth. "If you'd considered, you know, becoming the other kind of buddy. Releasing some of that tension Avery's got going on. He's a good-looking guy, great bone structure, hypnotic eyes. You're a relatively attractive woman. How about it?"

It takes me a moment to connect the dots. "Captain Sloan!"

"How about it, Kepner?"

"This is sexual harassment!"

"I prefer to think of it as sexual encouragement."

This must be what a heart attack feels like.

"Lexie." Her eyes go wide when I address her by way of an evasion tactic. "I'm planning a girls' night. Meredith, Cristina, a couple of rookie cops, chicken wings a la Callie. Are you interested?"

"I…"

"I'll text you." I dust off the front of my skirt, as if Sloan's left some kind of dirty-minded mark. "Have a good night. You too, Captain Sloan."

"Just run it up the flagpole, Kepner. Don't say no right away."

"No."

"Sleep on it."

"No!"

"Sleep with it?"

"Mark!"


	8. Young Girl

**8. Young Girl**

My mother has a saying: God doesn't always give you what you want, but He does give you what you need. It took me until I was thirteen to realise she was paraphrasing Jagger and Richards, but that's beside the point. The point is God doesn't ever give you more than you can handle, and what He does give isn't what's trendy, or sexy, or the next big thing – what He gives to you is what's right for you.

Irritatingly, that means whoever He brings into your life is right for you too.

"I have a collect call from a George O'Malley, will you accept the charges?"

"Yes," I reply, and take a deep breath before he comes on the line. "Hi, George."

He understands what it takes for me to say his name, to speak to him like an equal with all this uncertainty still swimming around inside me. If I'm wrong, and he is a killer, then I've done Charles and Reed an injustice I'll never be able to make amends for...but I'm starting to think listening to Meredith Grey and her cupcake-mandated message is what I'm supposed to do (in a big cosmic sense). Every time I walk away from this case, something pulls me back in. Chief Hunt has been through worse than I have, and he believes walking over old ground is the best way to heal. I have to confront my fears.

I have to do this.

"How are you?" George asks politely, testing the waters.

"I'm doing great, thank you. I've been working my way through the witness list Meredith passed on to me, and I wanted to find out what you remember about Sydney Heron. Her behaviour seems a little…" I trail off, and he easily picks up the thread.

"Doctor Heron? Enthusiastic. Happy. Big cheesy smile. A hugger. She took over as supervising resident when ours went on maternity, but I don't remember what specialty she was planning to…but that doesn't really matter, right?" He laughs self-depreciatingly, but I can hear him longing for that life again: for clean cuts, for blue scrubs, for any colour other than orange.

"What matters is what you thought of her," I say. "Whether you believe she was capable of violence, whether you believe a court would consider her more capable of violence than you."

"Isn't it rare for a woman to use a gun? Women are supposed to be more subtle, poison in their cheating spouse's coffee cup, that sort of thing."

"You're not so much helping your case right now as sabotaging it."

George laughs again. "I'm sorry, I just can't put a gun in Sydney Heron's hand. She annoyed the other residents more than me, but she was still harmless. She was a good doctor, she just didn't have the usual personality of someone who works long nights and watches people die on a regular basis – and if that wasn't sabotage, I don't know what is." His voice is low, gentle, but it still raises the hairs on the back of my neck. "I'm really glad you've taken my case, April."

"I really hope I don't regret it, George."

"Since you're the first person I've talked to in a day and a half who hasn't referred to me as 'bitch', can I ask you something?"

I take another steadying breath. "Okay…but I reserve the right not to answer."

"That's fair."

"Then go ahead."

"Are there still people from that time in your life now? Do you still have friends from the academy, friends who were rookies the same time you were?"

"I have one friend," I say cautiously. "Why?"

"It's not my place to give you advice, don't worry, I'm aware of that," is how he prefaces his next statement. "But after this is over, whatever happens to me, you might want to consider cutting them loose. I've only seen you once since my conviction, but once was enough to see how much all this still weighs on you. You weren't wearing a wedding ring. Your clothes were too nice for a mom. I don't want to offend you, but other than your hair colour, you looked exactly the same as you did at the trial. You looked like your life's been on pause." He exhales in a sort of sigh. "Like I said, it's not my place, especially when it's my fault the murder inquiry has been reopened, but it's going to go one of two ways. After that, you could go any number of ways, but I don't think you will if you're still eating waffles with the past on a Sunday morning – or whatever it is you hotshot P.I.s do on a Sunday morning. Pancakes? French toast?"

"We do eat waffles sometimes."

"That's good to hear. Advice from the inside aside, I'm really grateful that you are on pause, at least for now."

"I'm not completely on pause, I promise." Maybe I'm giving too much away to a probable murderer who I won't allow myself to trust, but Bailey thinks I won't forgive myself and George thinks I won't move on, and people have too many opinions about my life right now for me to moderate myself. "I have a hot yoga class, I have a boyfriend, and I go to church every Sunday. Life goes on."

"I hope it does," George says. "Have a great day, April."

"I will. You too."

"I probably won't. I'm in jail."

"Um…"

"I'm kidding. It's nice to talk to someone who doesn't call me a bitch."

"I promise to never call you a bitch."

"Good to hear."

"Okay then."

_**~#~**_

"So," Matthew lowers his head to kiss me, and lingers a little too long before pulling away. He's still in his clerical collar, and his hair is mussed (and I'm guilty, take me away). "You're denying me the pleasure of your company tonight for girls' night?"

"I am denying you the pleasure of my company tonight for girls' night," I chirp (oh my God, I'm _chirping_). "I wish you could come meet Callie and Arizona and everyone, but girls' night is girls' night, ladies only." His hands are on my shoulders, and they rub soothingly up and down as I shrug. "I feel like I'm asking too much already by inviting Meredith and Cristina, but Louise – that's George O'Malley's mom – called their office to say I'd spoken to George, and I guess they feel like they owe me. Lexie _should_ feel like she owes me after her and Sloan crashed our date the other night."

"What did they come about again?" He cups my face, and I momentarily lose my train of thought, either because it's super sweet and intimate, or because I'm trying to come up with a convincing lie.

"They were looking for Jackson. After his place and the gym and Callie's and the twenty four hour diner that does waffles the way he likes, my apartment is the next logical step."

This isn't technically true. My place is the step _before_ Jackson's place, where he never goes, the gym, where I never see him go (only arrive back from), Callie's, where he usually goes with me or to find me, and the twenty four hour diner, because a man can only eat so many waffles. There's no need for Matthew the minister to know any of that, though, since he's a virgin and he's perfect and he has the biggest brown eyes I've ever seen on a man. He's so careful with me, and I love that. He treats me like fine china.

I, April Kepner, am fine china.

We're standing in the church's entryway, where I went at five after I was done making calls, drinking too much coffee and not giving one hundred percent to my clients. In my defence, the only hot thing I have is George's retrial, and next to that, Mrs Mueller's missing moggy kind of pales by comparison. The police closed the homicide Bailey sent me to, and Jo and Stephanie were there for the collar (though I'm not sure why Stephanie was there to watch Jackson deck a murderer when she was supposed to be in the viewing gallery for her first autopsy at the time). I'm wearing a grey overcoat, and Matthew is wearing a black one with the pockets worn through, and he looks so Mr Darcy in it that I kind of wish the girls of girls' night were on another planet.

Karma comes back to bite me when my cell phone rings.

"This is Kepner."

"Don't you dare chicken out on me."

"Arizona?"

"It's six. I came by your place with my curling iron. You're not at your place. I'm assuming you're off smooching with Matthew, so I called to say don't you _dare_ chicken out on me, because my wife has gone to a lot of trouble for your soiree, and I am not taking on two cops, two lawyers and Lexie Grey on my own."

"I'm not chickening out, I promise!"

"Pinkie promise."

"Is that necessary?"

"Pinkie promise!"

"Fine, fine." I roll my eyes at Matthew. "I pinkie promise I won't chicken out of girls' night and put all Callie's work to shame. I'll be home by six thirty."

Before she can make any more demands, I hang up. Tall, dark and ministerial Mr Darcy smiles at me, and I turn the hose on the butterflies in my stomach and kiss him again. Why is it so hard every single time? Why is there still this little voice in the back of my head that says he's going to push me away, that he's too good for me, that I'm not the right girl for him? (I should start listening to that _Insecure to Sure_ podcast again). The anxiety is the same every time, but so is the kiss, pure down comforter comfort. It doesn't have the flashes or bangs or freak rainstorms of a romance movie kiss, but we don't have hours of planning time, hair and makeup, a director, a choreographer, or Ryan Gosling.

But I do have Matthew.

"You're denying me the pleasure of your company tonight for girls' night, aren't you?" He pushes a lock of hair behind my ear.

"I'm denying you the pleasure of my company tonight for girls' night."

"And you promised Arizona Robbins, paediatrician – see, I remembered – you'd be home in a half hour."

"Forty minutes?" I offer, taking a small step closer to signal I want just a little more from him. This time, this kiss, I won't be to be afraid. I, April Kepner, may be fine china, but I won't be afraid.

_Hands_, _April_, _hands_!

_Don_'_t get too into it_, _you don_'_t want him to think you_'_re slutty_.

_Seriously_? _You_'_re going to hang onto a guy like this with lips like that_?

My internal monologue sounds scarily like my sisters.

"So." Arizona's wrapping strands of my hair around the tong with one hand and painting her toenails with the other. If all doctors were as efficient as she is, I honestly believe cancer would be cured overnight. Arizona Robbins out-efficiencies cancer. "Where's Simba tonight?"

"Excuse me?"

"Jackson: he Simba, you Nala, you two get into scrapes and roll down hills and just can't wait to be king?" She makes a face at me in the mirror. "Sorry, I've been spending too much time with my daughter. Callie and I are Robin Hood and Maid Marian, apparently, the fox versions."

"And Sofia decided that?"

"No…but those movies suck you in."

I can't argue with the pulling power of Disney, but I can disagree on one point. "Jackson and I aren't going to _roll down hills_ anytime soon," I say meaningfully. "And it would be really great if I could have one night off from you and your wife's suggestions that I'm going to end up underneath him, giving him come-hither lion eyes while a meerkat and a warthog sing about our love in the background. In adult language, that means Jackson's rookie's is going to be there tonight, and it would be really great if you could stop insinuating my best friend and I are more than just friends. Men and women can be platonic, you know." Because, you see, I finally understand the secret language of Calzona (and I sort of wish I didn't, because most of it is innuendo, and the rest is snickering about me and Matthew or me and Jackson or how they're going to strong-arm me into a Brazilian wax).

"Oooh, stellar Disney knowledge!" A piece of crisply curled hair falls to my shoulder, bounces back up. I run my fingers through it to make the curl a wave, then shake my head, which feels approximately ten pounds heavier than when we started an hour ago.

"You realise this is girls' night, right, not ladies' night?"

"And your voice went up at the end of that sentence because…"

"Why are we so getting dressed up?"

"And I quote, 'Jo Wilson could look gorgeous in sweatpants, blah blah blah, she was born without pores, blah blah blah, isn't Lexie Grey unfairly beautiful, blah blah blah, she's so delicate, blah blah blah'." Arizona pauses to take a swig of wine. It isn't her first glass, and it won't be her last. "Meredith Grey is stunning, Cristina Yang is elegant, Simba's rookie is going to be there tonight, April compliments every woman she ever meets but would rather walk over hot coals than admit she's not that girl from Ohio with glasses and braces and acne anymore."

"That's not true."

"Then why were you surprised when Matthew asked you out? You said there was a spark between you the first time you met, so why wouldn't he?"

"It just doesn't happen to me a lot."

"Could that be because when you're in the places guys usually meet girls, like bars, like grocery stores, like…random sidewalks…you're already with this great looking guy, and you order drinks together, and you buy groceries together, and all they see is this big flashing sign over your head that says 'taken'?"

"I repeat," I repeat, struggling not to clench my teeth. "'It would be really great if you could stop insinuating my best friend and I are more than just friends'. Come on, Arizona. I'm seeing Matthew. He's sweet, and he's funny, he likes it when I babble, and I like him." I take a sip from my own glass. "Mark and Callie are friends, and I don't see you ribbing Callie about the two of them having sex."

"Because they did have sex, and it's not funny," she responds drily. "That's how we got Sofia."

"Right."

So not only am I an insecure babbler, I'm also the person who reminds the doctor who saves _babies _thatshe's not her daughter's biological parent. I may as well slap on some red lipstick now so I can blend in better in Hell later.

Arizona blows on her toenails and finishes her glass. "Don't worry about it. I won't say anything, Callie won't say anything, and we'll have a good night tonight, just us girls. We are going to have fun, aren't we?" Her teeth flash in a water-under-the-bridge, twenty four carat Arizona smile. "Kepner?"

I still feel awful, but I smile back. "Do you have any change for the jukebox?"

_**~#~**_

"We're going to say goodnight." It's only eleven PM and Meredith is swaying slightly in her heels, but she's a mom and Cristina has been alternately snarling at me and blowing me kisses for the last two hours. "Some of us have husbands to go home to."

"Husbands," Cristina agrees, starting off nodding and ending up with her chin on her chest. "Big, sexy husbands who don't mind frying late night bacon." She narrows her eyes at me. "He likes you, Kepner. It's annoying. You're annoying."

"You're annoying," I tell her cheerfully, probably because of the rows of empty glasses in front of me and the happy burn in my stomach. "But your husband's not. He's kind, and he's…kind, and he's tall. He's awesomely tall, Cristina, and awesome. Say I said he's tall and awesome."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She flaps her hand at me. "Drink up, Duckie."

"Hey! Who have you been – Cristina! Come back! Cristina!"

Callie pushes me back down onto my stool before I can fall off it. "Sit down, slugger. Have some disco fries, have another drink, play Truth or Dare with us." She's wearing an off-the-shoulder purple top, and Arizona's gaze keeps drifting. I'd put it down to the two bottles of wine she's already powered through, but Callie is kind of a goddess, and I'm kind of drunk, so I giggle and agree to play, although we're not in high school and fries topped with gravy and cheese are disgusting and delicious at the same time.

When Jo asks the question (she's so pretty, and earlier she whispered to me that her sweater isn't even that expensive, and I whispered back that's it's okay because her face totally is, and she rolled her eyes and made me drink a shot), I call truth before they can peer pressure me into a dare involving more liquor and fewer clothes.

Jo flutters her lashes at me, presses the back of her hand to her forehead like a damsel in distress. "Is this Matthew guy your _boyfriend_?"

"He is." There's a big pink glow around me (there's a big pink glow around everything, to be honest) when I answer.

"Do you _like_ him?"

"Yes."

"Do you _love_ him?"

"I…"

Things used to be a little awkward between Lexie and Callie, Mark Sloan's present and Mark Sloan's past, but Lexie volunteered to take care of Sofia for half an hour before the sitter arrived, and she's apparently amazing with Meredith's kids, so Sofia likes her, so Callie likes her, and likes the way Lexie makes Mark happy too. Lexie's hair is swept back off her face, and she's more clear-eyed than the rest of us. "April's too careful," she states with a laugh, clinking my empty glass with her full one. "Even tipsy, she'll never reveal how she really feels."

"Pfft." I blow a raspberry at her. "You're just my green coffee cooler buddy, you haven't even met Matthew."

"You should've shut the door on Mark the minute he started being inappropriate, but you didn't. You hung around, you made sure he knew you weren't going to sleep with Jackson, not even if he was covered in chocolate and tied up with a big red bow – which he would absolutely do if you were the one asking, by the way." Stephanie's head whips round like a pointer dog's, but we both ignore her. "You're so ready to tell everyone how you don't feel, who you don't want, but you never actually say how you _do_ feel. You obviously like this guy, but you stutter over admitting you love him. Why? Either because you don't have those feelings for him, or because real feelings can be rejected, and why risk being rejected when you have a good thing going? How will you ever fall in love," she challenges. "If you're too scared of getting your heart broken to try?"

Arizona lays her hand on Lexie's arm. "Woah there, Little Grey."

Everything swirls as I work on processing her semi-sober speech. Do I have a good thing going with Jackson, or with Matthew? Do I never actually say how I feel about Matthew, or about Jackson?

"I _am_ trying." My voice runs hot. "I want to be in love."

"With who?"

"With _Matthew_."

My big pink glow fades. Lexie leans back slightly on her barstool, her dark eyes shuttered. "Of course you are, April. Matthew sounds great, and it seems like you like him a lot."

"A_ lot_. You know, I think he might be the one."

But I don't sound sure.

I sound stubborn.

"I have a call," announces Stephanie, which is one of the few times she's spoken all night. It breaks the tension around the table as, glancing at Jo, she adds, "I'll be right back."

"Whatever." Jo waves her beer bottle in her friend's direction. "I just wanted to say that when Kepner suggested this, I thought, 'what a waste of time', but I'm having a great time. Are you having a great time?" She demands, homing in on Callie, pulling back before they can bump heads, laughing at how funny she finds herself. "Because I'm having an _awesome_ time."

Everyone mumbles something along the same lines. I'm still too woozy to figure out what Lexie meant versus what came out of Lexie's mouth, but even I get that whatever it was, the party's close to over. I start to deflate, the way I always do at the end of a night out: it's never how you imagine it's going to be, is it? The crazy adventures, the mysterious strangers, the free-flowing umbrella drinks, the hangover-free morning afters…it's like romance movie kisses, I guess.

My internal rambling is interrupted when Stephanie slams back into the bar, running full tilt into the glass door rather than opening it by the handle. Her black hair is standing out like clock springs around her frightened face.

"Jo," she manages, her chest heaving with the effort of talking instead of breathing.

Smoky eyeshadow and lavender sweater aside, Jo's all cop. "What is it, Steph? Edwards!"

"Man down," Stephanie gasps. "Avery, Karev – they were on the loop around downtown tonight." She's started breathing in slow motion, or that's how it looks to me. Everything's moving in slow motion.

"And?"

"And one of them was shot."

We're cop girls, Lexie and I, and Jo and Stephanie are girl cops, and Callie and Arizona have us on the sidewalk and in a cab as fast as they can stand up and dial numbers. It drops us at the front entrance of Seattle Grace, and Lexie has to ask where they are, because none of us can find the words. We're all sober, no need for water or aspirin – if anything, we're too sober. We struggle to stay still in the elevator (which is thankfully free of piped music or cheery messages), toes tapping, fingers clicking, and when we arrive at the right floor, we stop struggling and act like what we are, cop girls, and girl cops.

We take the hallway at a run, Jo's sweaty hand in mine. The worst part is knowing that we're both praying for the same thing, that the body on the bed in the room we're heading for isn't ours, that the man bleeding out into the uniform he put on proudly this morning isn't a man we have a stake in, a claim to. I know she would trade Alex for Jackson, and she knows I would trade Jackson for Alex.

It's that simple.

The last time person whose hand I held was Matthew. Lexie's words from earlier ring in my ears, temporarily drowning out the beating of my heart: _how will you ever fall in love if you're too scared of getting your heart broken to try_? Have I not been trying to fall in love? Or worse, have I been trying _not_ to fall in love? Is it that simple? I can't live every day like it's my last, I can't dye my hair cotton candy pink and learn to play the guitar and take quirky pictures of homeless people and trees with my big-ass camera. I'm not that girl. I'm the girl who waits to fall in love, maybe until it's too late to fall in love, because I'm too scared to try.

Jo's falling in love right now. I can hear it happening as she wheezes, sprinting in five inch heels (her sweater may not be expensive, but her shoes sure are), can hear the gears clicking in her brain. Right now, she's wondering if she'd be running if Alex Karev weren't her mentor, the guy who calls her Hobo Jo. Right now, she's wondering if she'd be running to his side, lungs bursting, heart on her sleeve, for anything less than a bullet, for a dislocation or a sprain or a cut.

Right now, she's realising she'd be running to him for a bad cold.

Jo's falling in love right now, and Lexie says I've been trying not to, but this is not the time or the place to think about that. All I can think is _not him_, _please God_, _not Jackson_.

She reaches the door first and bursts through it, mowing down a pastel-coloured nurse who moves to block her way – and it's Alex on the bed, Alex pressing a wad of white to his shoulder, Alex with his teeth bared and his chest bare, paler than I've ever seen him, his head snapping up as Jo steams towards him.

"Wilson? What the –"

Her hand slaps down on his, holding pressure, but her other hand isn't so pragmatic. It snakes around the back of his neck as Jo yanks Alex towards her and lays one on him. It's a real life romance movie kiss, her melting into him, him coming to life as he realises what she's doing, what she means, what she means to him. He's falling in love with her too. He's been falling in love with her forever. I almost want to cry as I watch it, watch him grin at her when she pulls back, watch the hand that was stroking his hair smack him around the back of the head for scaring her. "In the shoulder? I left half a bottle of beer behind because you were shot in the _shoulder_?" Suddenly serious, she leans her forehead against his and commands, "Don't ever do that again, Alex. I don't want to never see you again, do you hear me?"

"Yeah, I hear you."

"You're such an idiot."

"I know."

"Stop agreeing with me!"

He chuckles low in his throat, swiping his thumbs beneath her eyes to stop her tears. The pastel-coloured nurse, who appears to be the forgiving type, works her way around them to relieve Jo and tape the dressing to Alex's shoulder. He thanks her, then catches sight of me. I bite my lip and smile, because I'm happy it's just his shoulder, and I'm happy for him and Jo, but he's not who I came here for, ran down this hallway for, practically had a cardiac episode for. My heart must be leaving an imprint in the skin over my ribs, it's pounding so hard.

"He took me down," Alex tells me. "The shooter was aiming for my chest, but he knocked me out of the way. Both of us were too out of it to chase him, but he's okay. His shoulder's dislocated, but he's okay. He's in the room next door."

"I'm glad you're okay too."

"You're glad I'm the one who got shot," he corrects me. "But don't worry about it."

"Alex, I'm sorry –"

"Shut up, Kepner, and get next door. Let him hear that whiny voice of yours."

Maybe Jo was meant to reach the door first, because it's not my door. My door is next door, and I feel better as I approach it, knowing Jackson's not worse. I can breathe easier, and when the first person I see when I enter the room is Sloan, I can smile at him and say hi (where did we leave Lexie on our mad dash along the hall?) and when I turn my attention to the bed, I can –

Lose my shit.

Spectacularly.

My hands become fists, and my fists are pummelling every part of Jackson I can reach. He may well have saved Alex's life, and I'm hitting him, and I don't care. What I am is not better, what I am is mad. We have two dead friends. We have two dead friends, and he could've been my third dead friend, but no, he _has_ to do the loop around downtown, and he _has_ to be weird about Matthew so he spends less time in my apartment than usual, and he _has_ to be goddamn heroic, even though that bullet could've hit him, even though I would prefer for Alex's head to be blown clean off than for a bullet to so much as graze him. I hate him. He's stupid, and selfish, and inconsiderate, and _I hate him_. "I hate you!" I shriek, and while he isn't cowering away from me, he isn't fighting back either. "You could've died!" This is when I decide to switch to open-palmed slaps, but strong arms wrap casually around my torso and yank me away. I go, still kicking and screaming, and I still manage to score a direct hit on his idiotic head with my purse.

Score.

"Avery," says Mark Sloan coolly, holding me a foot off the ground, ignoring my thrashing. "Take Kepner home."

Lexie, who I didn't notice standing behind her boyfriend, makes a choking sound. "You want him to take _her_ home? No way. Have her temporarily committed to Psych, Jackson, I hear they get extra pudding in there."

Jackson's frowning as he answers his captain. "I need to pick my stuff up from the nurses' station."

"I'll get it. Take Daffy Duck here away before she has an aneurysm." He shakes me like a pepper pot. "Kepner! You've impressed me with your actions tonight, but Avery's going to take you home now! Are you going to go quietly, or do I have to stick a sedative in your butt?"

"I'm not deaf," I retort. "Put me down. I don't need a goddamn butt sedative."

I have absolutely no sympathy for how hard Lexie's choking.

We don't talk. Either one of us has good reason to give the other the silent treatment, and if we're both doing it, that's fine by me, thank you very much. We sit on opposite sides of the cab, we stand on opposite sides of the elevator, and he stays well back as I unlock my apartment and go in first, hurling my keys at the table where I put the mail instead of hanging them on the hook where they belong. I'm tired. I'm terrified. My body hurts, and my mind hurts, and even the thought of a world without Jackson Avery being mean about my ponytail and leaving his cereal bowl in my sink makes me soul ache. I can't do this anymore, the dying. I'd have to lie down and die too, if I were the last, because I'm the least. They were all better than me, but he's the best. He's the best police officer, and the best person, and my best friend, and he's shuffling his feet in my doorway because the idea of losing him made me lose my mind. If I'd killed him with my tiny, ineffectual fists, it would've been a crime of passion.

Passion?

"April."

I turn around.

"April, I –"

I don't let him get any further than that. I have to do it at a run, but I do it: I take a step backward, then several steps forward, and I stretch up on my toes, and I kiss him. I. Me. I kiss Jackson, and it goes through me like a bolt of lightning from the storm that started gathering over Seattle about a two hours ago. It's new, and it's strange, and I hate it. I hate the tang of salt that might be blood, I hate how alive he feels. I hate feeling him move when I move, adjusting, trying to comprehend exactly what I'm trying to comprehend, which is why I, of all people, would kiss him. It's not like kissing Matthew. I _hate_ that it's not like kissing Matthew. There's no reason why it should be different, but it is. It's not numbing. It's like plunging my hand into boiling water and enjoying the burn. I _enjoy_ kissing him. Every second of it burns me better and draws me deeper, and I want more. I want more than his closed lips, hot against my icy ones. I want to feel his tight muscles relax, and I want to feel his arms go around me, and I want his hands in my hair, and I want more than cold, clinical adjustment.

I want more.

And I can't have more.

And I have to have more.

"Oh my God." It's my fault, all of it, yet I'm the one reeling back, trembling all over, pushing my hair back from my face, dying inside because I have to get closer to him to get further away, to get out the door, down the hall and gone. "Oh my God. I'm sorry, I don't know what I…I shouldn't have…oh my God, I'm sorry."

"April…"

"No."

"April!"

But he can't stop me. He never could. I get through these things on my own, or I don't, and I might not be able to hide out in the shower this time, but I can run out into the rain. It's pouring, quickly soaking the light jacket I wore over my pink going out blouse. It ruins the beautiful job Arizona did of my hair. I walk quickly down the street, not even looking for a place to shelter. I go around the corner, to the side of the block that borders a park, and I find a bench: _Eileen Thompson_,_ sit awhile and remember me_. I really hope Eileen is resting in peace and has been for a long time, because I can't spare even a second to wish her well. Jackson could've died. I hit him. I kissed him. I think I did it because for a while there, without meaning to, he broke my heart.

_How will you ever fall in love if you're too scared of getting your heart broken to try_?

"Why did I do that?" I whisper, and hope there are no crazy bag ladies out tonight to hear me sounding even crazier than they are.

Why did he let me?


	9. Are You Mine

**9. Are You Mine**

The stairs blaze from black to white with each flash of lightning. I'm still not still enough to handle the elevator. I have to grip the bannister and haul myself up, against my will, against my better judgement. _Why did I do that_ is the question of the hour, so I keep climbing, because even if I don't deserve a decent answer from my messed up moral compass, there's someone a few floors up who does.

Jackson's standing in the exact same spot as he was when I ran out. He's a silhouette against the dark kitchen behind him, outlined with electricity and light.

"I shouldn't have kissed you," I practically shout at him. "I don't know why I did it."

He just looks at me. He just looks at me the way he always looks at me, green eyes intent, intense, pretty-boy-award-winning-panty-dropping-too-familiar face immobile. I could draw him from memory. I would hear his voice in a crowded room. I kissed him, and I don't know why I did it, but I know I had to. I know he could've died, and I know I had to kiss him because I was so grateful he was alive, and it would be an insult to God and to the way I feel to waste a second of him, a drop of him, an inch of him. I know I had to kiss him. I just had to.

"I have to kiss you, Jackson." My voice is quieter now, and my hands hang empty at my sides. Water drips off my fingertips. Droplets pitter-patter on the floor. My clothes are soaked. My hair is flat to my head. I ran out into a rainstorm because I kissed my best friend and needed to avoid kissing him again, but that isn't working out so well for me. "And if you don't want me to kiss you, you have to tell me to stop now. Tell me to stop and I'll stop." I wish he would, because someone's changed the focus on the lens I normally see the world through, and he's everything, suddenly, out of nowhere, in the middle of the night. I was born to kiss him. Every decision I've made, I made to bring me here, the two of us still standing over their two bodies.

"And if I kiss you, I'm not going to be able to just kiss you," I go on, since there's no way of stopping myself now, and it's not like I can make the situation any worse. "Because if I kiss you, I won't be able to stop. I know how this works, I know where kissing goes. I'm not a little kid anymore." The air is thick with the approaching thunder. He just looks at me. "And I want to, and I want you to want me to." I wish I didn't. I wish he'd never gone in to work tonight, I wish I'd never waited, I wish I'd never come to the realisation that it's him I've been waiting for.

He doesn't tell me to stop.

I have to kiss him. It's more tender, at first, than that fierce first kiss – and then it isn't. It goes hard and it goes hot, his lips slightly rough, crushing mine, his jawline rougher, scraping over mine as we push against each other, struggle, fight. His tongue slides over mine, his taste is in my mouth, he's so close that I can smell his sweat and thank God, again and again, that he's alive. His grip on my waist is so tight that I can't breathe, and how can I think if I can't breathe? I have to gasp around the way he's kissing _me_, and find my way back into one kiss-suck-bite that leads to another, and another, so many kisses that I can't count or categorise or analyse them, the way I always do, kisses that affect my body in more places than my aching lips.

He isn't manipulating me. He isn't going to defile me, take anything from me.

I'm going to give it to him.

His expression never changes as I pull off my wet jacket, my blouse, my bra. My drying, curling hair sticks to my temples and my skin pebbles, even in the humid air, so he has to know it's not because I'm cold. It's because he just looks at me, once again, at the pale and the pink, at the lines and curves, and then without warning he wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me against him, burying his face in my hair, breathing me in, huffing me like glue, drawing lines up and down my back that run parallel to my spine.

"You're a virgin," he murmurs. "You're a virgin, you're a virgin…"

"Jackson." I wriggle, lean back a little so he can see me properly. "Hey. It's okay. Really." I bite my lip, kiss him, bite his lip, feel the need and the want and the _have to_ rise up in me, override the person I was when I started my training, when Charles and Reed died, when I went out tonight only worried about dirty talk from Callie and dirty looks from Stephanie. "It's okay," I promise, then tug on the drawstring hanging from the hood of his sweater, tracing the motif.

_Seattle Police Department: Service, Pride, Dedication_.

It comes off.

I've seen Jackson shirtless before. I'm pretty sure I've even seen Jackson naked before, not that I was looking. What I didn't appreciate is how strange and lovely the lines of muscle are, the places that tense when I touch them, the strong places where mine are soft. He holds onto me and strokes my skin, all the way around my neck, along my arms, below my collarbone, lower, sweeping across my stomach, up from my belly button and all the way back to my chin, his fingers getting lost in my hair. He leaves heat behind, more _have to_s. I have to dig my nails into his sore muscles, have to smile at the groan he tries to hold back, have to push against his chest with my palms and feel his heart push back. Whatever this is, it's not sex. Even when everything's on the floor, even when there's not even those last pieces of cotton and lace between us, and we're looking but not looking at each other, it's not sex. Even when the storm breaks for real and makes us a cliché, it's not sex.

He kisses me everywhere. There are parts of me I've never even seen without a mirror, and he kisses me there too. Pure pleasure, as dizzy-making as a hit of pure sugar, makes me jolt in surprise, and I _feel_ his smile. There's more, though. There's the natural progression of a kiss from closed-lipped and chaste to anything goes and everything goes everywhere, and he even bites me, softly, knowing exactly what he's doing, knowing the exact moment when my stomach muscles come together and press down, and the room goes white one more time from the lightning, and I go white too. Sweat breaks out on my back. My chest flushes. I get high and I fall down, back up and back down again until my head feels like it's empty of fear and feelings, and when I fall all the way down, I see him propped up on his elbows, just looking at me.

I slide down the bed, my head bumping from pillow to mattress.

"I don't know how to…"

But I've forgotten this is my best friend, who's done this before, and I can't allow myself to remember that, because it'll make me nervous, and _Cosmopolitan_, _Glamour_ and _Good Housekeeping_ have taught me that if I'm too nervous, this isn't going to work.

_You had to kiss him_.

_And I wanted to_.

_You have to do this_.

_I want to_.

I've said it before, and I meant it: learning anything requires practice, multiple exposures to what you're supposed to be learning. He guides me through this first try, and we roll and I end up on top, which is different, but not in a bad way. My body knows where it's going and what it's doing, even though my heart is racing towards a finish line I can't even see. My heart is racing, and Jackson is looking at me, at the way I bite my lip, at the way I look to him. I kiss him again, slowly, cupping his face, then press mine into his neck and memorise the tang of salt on my tongue, the sore spots, the sweet spots. I haven't been careful, not even of his supposed-to-be-strapped-up shoulder, and neither has he.

"You're alive," I whisper.

"Yeah."

"You're okay."

"I'm okay." Lifting me up an inch or so by the elbows (since that's all I'm prepared to go), he looks more serious. "That's not – April, that's not why you're doing this, right?"

"No," I agree. "That's not why I'm doing this."

It does hurt, this first try, but not as much as I expected it to. The weather gets worse, and the wind screams and smothers whatever sounds we make, and we bend, but we don't break (the tiny bones in my toes do crick and crack, but that's because they keep curling). He's as familiar to me as he is far away, a fantasy I most likely pushed down and denied until I forgot it ever existed. I remember now. I remember imagining what it would feel like to smooth my fingers over him, the way all shy girls with access to too much reading material do when they meet a hot guy. The reality is better (warmer); the connection between us is warmer (hotter), signalling everything else to follow its example, to fuse together flesh and bones, to not let us be two slightly lonely people anymore.

But if I had to be another slightly lonely person right now, I would be Jackson. I would see me through his intent, intense green eyes, see me staring up in obvious awe because of the things he can do to me. Because it's him, I give him all of me. Because it's him, he gives me all of him in return.

The storm passes, and we lie on our backs between the cooling sheets, breathing heavily.

"Okay."

I'm laughing, sort of, and sort of gasping. At him.

"That was…really great."

"Yeah, yes, yes, yes, that…was." Laughing turns all my small bumps and bruises into one big bodily grumpus, but I don't care. If even the comedown is this freaking good, why aren't people having sex all the time?

"You were great, I mean." Except, you know, now I can't look at him. I can't look him in the eye. "I mean, are you, uh…you glad we did it?" His voice is a little husky, close to my ear. I want to look at him, but I can't.

"Yeah. Yeah."

"So you're okay?"

Don't ask me if I'm okay, Jackson. You made me come, and I made you come (I'm not self-assured in any way, I'm just not naïve), several times, and talking about it sounds like you were teaching me to ride a bike and you're asking about the times I fell off.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just…tired." I can't look at him. I can't even touch him. I am _trying_, and I can't. "You should get some sleep."

"Yeah, I should get some sleep." He tried. He turned on his side, and he looked at me, because one of us is still capable of behaving like a normal human being, and now he's back on his back, but at least he tried. "Here, or…"

"Yeah. _Yeah_." So I'm trying, and I can't, so something must be stopping me. I'm trying to flavour my words with at least a smidgeon of enthusiasm, because hey, what best friend I just screwed doesn't deserve enthusiasm? "Or…or you could go."

"Yeah. You know what, I'll go, and get some sleep…"

"Okay."

"You're sure you're okay?" Something's stopping him too, even though he's halfway up and away from me. Something has dropped his voice to a murmur, and the places where his hands were just a few minutes ago do their best to burn, and I do it. I look at him. It's the easiest thing in the world, looking at the guy in your bed, looking at the person who's seen every part of you. What could be easier?

"I'm great."

I think I'd still like to be Jackson, seeing me through his green eyes, having those killer cheekbones and those firm lips that aren't always compressed. He grins lopsidedly, adorably at me. "I'll see you tomorrow." And it's the easiest thing in the world for him to kiss me (what could be easier), to curve his palm to fit my cheek and leave my mouth feeling soft and sad and not what it used to be.

I watch him go, although I deliberately don't stare. I hear him in the kitchen, where all this began, where _we_ began, and I take that as my cue to stop looking. I can stop now. I don't have to. There's nothing left for me to be afraid of. I'm an adult now, really and truly, now the last piece of my puzzle has gone away with him, hung on his bedpost, tucked in his back pocket. I can stop looking, so I close my eyes, and I push my face into the pillow, the way I always do when I'm going to sleep, and the tears stopping me touching him and making even more of a mess of things flow. I'm sweaty and sticky and snotty, who wouldn't want a piece of this? What idiot would see me wanting him and want me back, what saviour would save me? I, April Kepner, am a human wrecking ball. Relationships, I ruin. Promises, I break. Don't get me started on my opinion of myself, April Kepner, human wrecking ball right now, because after what I just did, there aren't enough dirty words (and yes, all those words are variants of the word 'dirty').

Taking a shower might solve some of my problems, but I wasn't lying when I told Jackson I was tired, because he was great, and this is all me. I roll over to the other side of the bed, lay my head on the clean, non-cried-on pillow where his was. I thank God he's alive, over and over, but the connection keeps dropping.

For the first time in my life, I pray to Him with no reassurance that He's listening, or that He even cares.

_**~#~**_

The solution is right in front of me when I wake up late, hovering in the air like Macbeth's ghostly dagger: don't do it again. Go to church, beg for forgiveness, promise Him you'll save yourself and mean it this time. Revirginisation is a growing movement, claims the internet, a purification of the body and the soul which resets you to a childlike state of innocence. You're more like Jesus, God's words and work and unbiased love for everyone and everything inside a human body. I've gotten cynical, and I've been letting it happen, and last night showed me just how much I'd fallen without even being aware I'd slipped.

But, despite all the tears and the mess my hair is in, there's no need to panic. God doesn't ever give you more than you can handle. _You can_'_t always get what you want_. I'm humming as I walk into the kitchen, making plans that'll make me happy sometime soon in a masochistic kind of way.

"Hey."

"Oh my God!"

What I neglected to mention is that I fell asleep last night naked and, naturally, assuming there was no one else in my house, got up naked, walked into my kitchen naked. That would be all well and good if there _was_ no one else in my house, but there's not, or rather, there is.

"You're here," I say accusingly. "You said you were going."

Jackson shrugs, and I slowly straighten up, figuring there's no point in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. He's at the stove, fiddling with a slice of French toast, favouring his right arm. He's tall and lean and fully dressed, pretty much ignoring my nudity and reproachful tone. "You weren't okay," is his only explanation. "So I slept on your couch, and that way I could talk to you this morning before – Jesus Christ, April!" He glanced away from the pan, just for a second, but long enough to let me know he wasn't so much ignoring my nudity before as not noticing it.

I slap my hands back over my salient parts, like that's going to help. "What? I've seen your things, you've seen mine, it's all just flesh and cartilage!"

He's quiet for a moment, and then he turns off the stove, turns around. It seems like he's trying to ignore my nudity, jaw set, nostrils flaring, which is new. "You weren't okay," he repeats. "You're not okay. Come on, you couldn't even look at me, or…"

"It's not you, Jackson." _It_'_s not you_, _it_'_s me_. _It_'_s all me_. "It's Jesus. I was a virgin because I love Jesus, and now Jesus hates me."

"What? No. April, that's crap."

"It is _not_!" I couldn't even look at him when he was looking at me, and he's still looking at me, but my head shot up all on its own. I glare at him, even as more hot, awful tears spring to my eyes. "I broke my promise to Jesus and now I can't even talk to him, and I really, _really_ need to talk to him because I feel _horrible_, because I broke my promise to him, because I screwed things up with you, because I _screwed_ you, and now Jesus _hates_ me!"

"No, he doesn't!"

"Yes, he does, Jesus hates me!"

"He does not!"

"He hates me! He hates me, He hates me, He _hates_ me!"

"Shut up!"

"Stop yelling, why are you yelling at me?!"

"Because I'm all messed up now too!" It would be funny if it weren't so sad, his waving arms and my hand camouflage, screaming at each other at ten o'clock in the morning. "I mean, what am I, I'm the guy who made you break your promise to Jesus? I am not that guy!"

It would be funny if it weren't so sad, because he's right. He's not that guy. He's not the guy who gets his rocks off by planting his flag in virgin territory, he's not a conquistador. He's not John Smith, and I'm not Pocahontas. We're lions, apparently, although I'm not sure if that's relevant right now. I'm relegating him to the role of violator, of thief, and he's neither of those things. He's Jackson Avery, and he has this really dry sense of humour not many people respond to, and he's catalogue model handsome, let's be honest, and it gave me chills when his middle-of-the-night-o'clock shadow rasped over my skin. He's my friend, and more than my friend, and he's right. He's not that guy.

I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. I stand up straighter. "The problem isn't that I broke my promise, that's not the problem." That's a problem I could be properly penitent about. I could fast for that problem. "The problem is…" I stop, take another breath, take it from the top. "The problem is –"

"That it felt good."

And there it is.

"It felt good."

Because waking up and seeing him in my kitchen? Bad. Very bad. My insides did a happy dance, and the muscles in his shoulders flexed as he focused on using that one side so the other could heal, and I was treated to a view I didn't get last night, of when he was on top of me, and then I got to thinking about when he was on top of me, and even though that was all snarled up with Jesus hating me, it still made my heart start beating like a jungle drum.

"But I'm not going to have sex with you," I blurt, then tag on, "Again."

Jackson's expression is mildly offended, but also amused. "Calm down, April. I'm not an animal."

"I know, I just –"

"You just think the sight of you naked combined with French toast is an aphrodisiac I'm powerless to resist."

"I…"

"Don't worry, I can handle it." He grins, then grimaces as his gaze drifts downwards. He's a guy, after all. "But would you please put some clothes on?"

_I might not be acting like it_,_ Jesus_, _what with the talking and the flirting and the staring_, _but I really am committed to this revirginising business_. _I_'_m just a talky_,_ flirty_, _starey person_. _Please don_'_t take it personally_.

He may be giving me the silent treatment, but that was always Alice's trick too. I would hold one-sided conversations with her until she gave in, or failing that, steal her nicest outfit and wear it around the house until she shrieked for me to keep my big ass away from her stuff. Jesus' nicest outfit is probably out of my price range since I'm not a museum, but the other tactic might work. He won't be as easy to crack as Alice, but hopefully with prayer and good behaviour and nothing more than platonic talking/flirting/staring, I can get the lines of communication open again.

"Hey, do you have any – and I will come back later!"

I roll my eyes. "Don't get your panties in a twist, you've already seen everything there is to see." I managed to put a bra and panties on while bending Jesus' ear, so compared to five minutes ago, I'm practically covered up. I revolve on the spot like I'm showing them off.

Jackson is looking at me strangely again.

"April."

No, no no. _Not good_.

"What?"

"I've known you a while," he says quietly. "And I don't think I'll ever see everything there is to see when it comes to you." He has no idea how devastating it is when he says things like that, when he's worrying his lower lip between his teeth, when I'm…Jesus. When I'm supposed to be making it up with Jesus. Jackson has always bitten his lip. Jackson has always been attractive. That's not the problem.

The problem is, it felt good.

The problem is, it still does.

Too much in my own head to notice him moving in on me, the first I'm aware of is a brush along my clavicle, into the dip behind it. That's the accelerant being poured over our friendship, but I'm safe, because there are no sparks yet. No sparks means no fire, no fire means no burn, no burn means no exactly what you think it means. I bite my lip too, sneaking a peek up at him. He seems transfixed by the slope of my neck down to my shoulder, which is completely ridiculous, since he must have first seen that long before he saw me naked.

"So, you're serious about this whole revirginising thing…"

"So…"

"Let's not pretend that you and I never happened." He nudges the left bra strap down my arm, but it's most likely accidental, so I don't protest or make an effort to push it back up. "Let's remember that it happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again. Unless we want it to. Unless we are…ready."

Don't say that, Jackson. If we start down this road, then friendship is just going to fall by the wayside, and when we fall apart, I'll lose you. I am not ready to lose you. I'm never going to be ready to lose you.

To distract us both, I slip my hand up the sleeve of his shirt, testing for tenderness in his shoulder. "Does it still hurt?"

The sound he makes is too much like a moan. It's too much. He's too much. There's too much of him in my space, in my room, blocking the doorway, his voice rasps too much when he's giving me ultimatums, he smells too good. I can't reconcile the person who ribs me about my career with the person I dug my nails into last night, so for me there are two Jacksons, and two Jacksons is two too many. He's more than in my space, he's in me (but you, know, not like that).

"Do you still hurt?" He retorts, and I wrap my arms around his neck and step onto his feet and I don't care if he hurts. We don't talk about that. We're done talking about that. We're done talking. I tug on his bitten lip and press my lips to his smirk, and soon that smirk is gone, parted, leading me on, leading me in, and the burn is back, and each kiss is a scald. My other bra strap gets 'accidentally' moved out of the way, and then my bra goes somewhere, and so do we. He carries me into the bathroom (with _one freaking arm_), and I turn on the shower, and we slip against the wet tiles, slide against each other, struggle to find something to hold onto while the spray batters us and we kind of, sort of, batter one another.

Again.

And although I try to keep my heart out of it, I can't. The way I feel is…complicated. The way I feel includes my body and my mind and maybe my soul, which I'm supposed to be giving back to God pretty soon, so I guess it's best to keep that out of the equation. My body knows where it's going and what it's doing, after all, and it's not like either of us are in a position to ask the other for anything more. It's not like we'd want to if we were.

Right?

When it's over, I shake my head to clear it. "Do we have a problem here?"

"What? No!" Jackson's face is all scrunchy and incredulous. "We're two mature people who made the mature decision to have sex – twice. We get to choose if and when we want to have it or not. It's under control."

"Right. Like you said, we're not animals."

"Right."

"Except I may have acted slightly like an animal just then."

"Of course you weren't."

"I _licked_ you."

"You were into it! Nobody's responsible for what they do during sex, like…like I pulled your hair! Hard!"

"Yeah, yeah you did."

"Yeah, I did."

"I liked it."

"I liked the licking."

"Really?"

"Really."

"It's not under control, is it?"

"Probably not, no."

"So when I was naked combined with French toast…"

"I've never been so turned on."

"_Really_?" I fill my hand with what he calls 'girlie' shower gel (that's coconut and sparkleberry, thank you very much), and slap the lilac payload onto his chest. It oozes slowly downwards, and I smile like a baby angel with a spotless driver's license. "Must have been the French toast."

"Must have been."

_I might not be acting like it_,_ Jesus_,_ what with round two happening shortly after we last spoke_, _but I promise You (again) that I am committed to revirginising (again)_.

"I…" Ruin the mood, since that's what I do best. "…am going to go pray, and when I'm done praying, I need you to be gone. I need you to go to the doctor, and get your prescription filled, and I need you to come back here this evening, with your clothes on and your shoulder numbed, so we can have shiny, happy, adult discussion about this. Is that okay?" I finish on an uncertain note, totally ruining the take-charge-ness of the past ten seconds.

It's hard to take anyone seriously when they have purple goo dripping down their rock hard – _head in the game_, _April_! – but Jackson nods, and I nod, but I only get as far as the glass door before he says my name again.

"What?"

What is I'm not the one in charge, apparently. It appears he's going to kiss me no matter what I say, and this one's a killer. It's sweet, and it's brief, and my mouth is pursed in a little kiss shape long after I'm dry and dressed and on my knees, doing my best to figure out how the last twelve hours happened. When I touch my lips to try to wipe away the tingle, my fingers tingle too.

_Dear God_,_ please forgive me_. _Forgive me for not being constant when I should've been_,_ for not being strong when I_ _should_'_ve been_, _for not being committed enough to You to resist_; _forgive me for last night_, _and this morning_,_ and for the way I keeping having to check he really did kiss me, and so on_, _and that it wasn_'_t all a weird sex dream_ – _although_, _if in Your Mercy You_'_d like to make it all have been a weird sex dream and forgive my sins_,_ I promise never to attempt a replication in real life_.

_W__ho am I kidding_? _Not You_.

_Heavenly Father_, _please bless and watch over Jackson Avery_,_ whom I hope You_'_re not mad at_, _because it was me throwing myself at him last night_, _mea culpa_,_ etc_. _Thank you for protecting him from getting shot and sustaining any other major injuries last night_. _I_'_m not counting the shoulder thing_.

_Dear God_,_ please tell me where to go from here_.

I wish He would, because someone else is everything, suddenly, and I have to dump out the French toast before I become a pool on the floor like spilt syrup.


	10. Wild Is The Wind

**10. Wild Is The Wind**

It was the sex talking.

I've never accepted that as a justification from my clients: 'it was the jealousy talking' is not a valid excuse for saying you want to castrate your husband with a pair of garden shears, even if he is giving it to the housekeeper and I caught them at it with my long lens; 'it was the pregnancy talking' is not a valid excuse for admitting that actually, you want five kids, not just one, all boys, that you want a whole miniature soccer team of kids, and a house in the suburbs. I want a boy first when the time is right, because boys are supposed to be easier, and then I want whatever comes out of me. I also want a house with a yard and a porch swing and a grill for cooking outdoors in the summer. That's me talking.

But when I was babbling about how complicated my emotions are, and how similar I am to syrup, it was the sex talking. I am not syrup. I am a grown-ass woman (Jackson's words, not mine) who had sex with a grown-ass man, and it was one hundred percent the sex talking, and it was the sex making me all flustered about tingling lips and minds and bodies and hearts and souls.

Because the sex does not control me, I take the day to be a grown-ass woman and do non-sexual property and personal maintenance (which means I clean the apartment, sort the mail, deliberate over new linens for a half hour, touch up my roots, scrub myself until it feels like there's no April left to scrub, and paint my toenails – it's hard have sex on the brain when your toenails are painted such a pretty shade of blue and Ellen's giving away those stand mixers I have a total culinary crush on). Obviously I'm procrastinating, because soon 'today' will end and 'tonight' will begin, and no amount of plumping up the gorgeous green cushions which compliment my gorgeous cream couch will compensate for the fact that as soon as I hear a knock on the door, the sex will start talking again, and then I'll be forced to feel things I am not okay with feeling.

(Sex is a very convincing argument).

I've blown Chief Hunt off for our six AM therapy session twice now, partly because I was busy breaking my promise to Jesus last night, and partly because I'm scared of having to remember that night again – almost as much as I'm scared of forgetting it, forgetting them. I can still picture Reed sitting on our kitchen counter, swinging her legs and chatting while I made mac and cheese out of a packet. She loved every kind of pasta, and I think I dyed my hair red because it was her colour. I know she'll fade. I know they both will.

That's how grief is supposed to work.

"It doesn't feel right," I tell Hunt on our second lap around Denny Park. When I called his office to apologise for skipping, he carpe-ed the diem and wouldn't let hang up until I agreed to a six _PM_ meeting with him, which is why we're now walking in circles. His strides are so long, I have to take two steps for every one of his. "I've accepted they're not coming back, which is the final Kübler-Ross stage, so I'm ship-shape as far as grief goes. Actively trying to forget them, though? That doesn't feel fair. George O'Malley –" _That_'_s_ _George O_'_Malley_,_ convicted murderer_, _you may as well have peed on your friends_'_ graves and insulted their memories that way if he turns out to be guilty_. "George thinks that when I'm done with his case, I should let go of everything else from that time too." _And every_one. "But what happened to them – plus the hole in Alex's shoulder – that's the reason I'm not a police officer anymore. If I don't have them, then I don't have a reason. I just burned out."

"It was reason enough when you made the decision," he counters. "You don't have to go back on it if you move on from it. Think of it like this: if you broke it off with someone because they cheated on you, and afterward you got over the cheating and learned to trust again, does that mean you should go back to them to make good on that trust? No. Besides, who's going to believe you burned out? Nobody who knows the truth. Nobody whose opinion you care about."

"But do you agree?"

"Do I agree with what?"

"That I should let go of everything else from the SPD too."

The sunlight comes hazy through the clouds, making his hair shine sometimes blond, sometimes red. "You're asking the chief of the Seattle Police Department if you should sever all ties with the Seattle Police Department."

"I'm asking Major Owen Hunt if I should sever all ties with the Seattle Police Department."

Hunt smiles ruefully. "For me, most of the guys I knew out there died out there, which is why my Christmas card list is so short. If we're talking about, say, Avery…" Which means he's aware we're talking about, say, Avery, and I keep staring ahead to encourage him to do likewise (and not to comment on the flush overflowing my cheeks and heading for my forehead). "I'd ask you if the first thing you see when you look at him is Officers Percy and Adamson."

"No," I answer, too quickly. Even in the aftermath, when it felt like my ears were ringing from a bomb blast, when the world was topsy-turvy and didn't seem ready to right itself anytime soon, Jackson was just…Jackson. He belonged with me, in the survivors' corner, separated out from normal people, sitting because I didn't have it in me to stand and he didn't have it in him to let me sit on my own.

No, I don't see them when I look at him. I just see him.

That might actually be worse.

"Then why would you give up on someone who's never given up on you?"

"Because he should get to move on too. Sure, he doesn't have nightmares anymore, and it's not like he's one of 'the Mercy West two', but he hasn't moved on. He still has me." He still has dinner with me. He still goes bowling with me, and mocks the people in leagues. What happened – what's _happening_ – between us right now may just be a product of that. Arizona's right, we're together all the time, he feels responsible for me, he knows my coffee order. What if we're falling into this (not that I'm falling _anywhere_) just because it seems logical? "Jackson went to this bachelor party in New Orleans about a year ago, and for a while he went on and on about moving to Louisiana. Is he ever going to do it? Doubtful. Why is he never going to do it?"

"Because his life is here. Because his job is here."

"Because I'm here."

"Give credit where credit's due, Kepner." It's started to rain, and Hunt pulls an umbrella from nowhere and chivalrously holds it over both our heads. He's one of those guys whom I imagine has a penknife stashed somewhere on his person, plus a length of twine and an emergency ration pack. "Avery is an adult who can make his own decisions. You risk patronising him if you make them for him, as well as him getting pissed at you."

"I know." I sigh. "This therapy thing? This is hard."

"All it is is talking. The only difference between this and a normal conversation is you're saying what you would usually keep to yourself." A miniature waterfall of raindrops cascades around us as he shakes the umbrella. "If more people expressed their emotions, there'd be far less mental illness."

"Can I get that on a t-shirt?"

"Are you masking your emotions with sarcasm?"

"I might be."

"I think you need another lap."

_**~#~**_

"Where can I put this? Is there a gift table?"

"Ha ha, you're hilarious."

I'm balancing two foil-covered casserole dishes and a bouquet. Alex is sitting up in bed, already surrounded by five or six floral arrangements. I lay mine on his tray table, and stoop to slide the dishes into the room's small fridge. "One of these is lasagne, and one of these is tortilla casserole. If you don't feel like eating processed junk when you get home, there's enough for four modern humans or one caveman. I added some vegetables, but they're minced up really small," I tell him proudly. "You won't heal properly if you eat like a T-Rex."

"Thanks, Apes."

"Don't call me Apes." I glance around for somewhere to sit, but the visitor's chair is occupied by Jo, who's snoring to beat the band. I perch on the edge of the bed instead. "How are you?"

"My shoulder hurts," replies Captain Obvious. "But the bullet didn't hit anything important, and the doctor only wants to keep me in for another day." His gaze drifts from me to Sleeping Beauty, and there are no words to describe the change in his expression. "I'm so freaking happy, Apes. She makes me want to be a better person, you know?"

I wrinkle my nose. "After one day?"

"Shut up, it's not one day. It's…it's a lot of days. More days than I realised. I've never met anyone like her, not anyone. Even when she was beating the crap out of Peckwell, she looked gorgeous. She always looks gorgeous. And it's not just that, she's funny, and she's smart, and she's into _me_." Alex shakes his head, a dog bothered by a butterfly. "You've seen the girls I date, they're either crazy or slutty. They don't have good jobs, they don't eat anything but salad, and it always feels like they're waiting for a slightly better guy to come along so they can dump me."

"Well, Jo may not be slutty, but she is crazy." He's adorable, the way the cantankerous old man from _Up_ is adorable. I lay my hand on his and squeeze. "Maybe that's why she's into you; or more likely, maybe she's into you because all those other crazy, slutty girls couldn't see how much of a good guy you are, and she can." I shrug. "God, she can really sleep!"

"She can," he agrees. "But I'm training her. Hey. Hey! Hobo Jo!"

Jo swats the air in front of her face without opening her eyes. "What?"

"I love you."

"Whatever. You too." Shifting her head to the opposite shoulder, she resumes snoring, somehow managing to look fresh-faced and like she deliberately styled her hair that way after a night in a chair which she probably spent wide awake, panicking about her brand new boyfriend's heart rate.

"She's practically perfect," I say in disgust. "And practically perfect for you."

"Yeah. Hey, thanks for the –"

"Hey, Alex, how's your – April?"

Seattle is not a small city. This should not keep happening. In fact, the likelihood of this continually happening is so small, it's proof God is punishing me for my sins. I had one job, not to eat the apple, but no, I had to go ahead and eat the stupid apple, and now He's punishing me by dangling the apple in front of me and daring me to go at it again. It's my own fault for commanding Jackson to get his prescription filled this morning, but in my defence, who gets a prescription filled at seven thirty?

"Jackson." My back is to him, so he can't see I'm only smiling with my teeth, not with my eyes, which are busy darting between Jo, Alex, the pattern on my skirt and the floor. "What are you doing here? Visiting hours are over."

"You got in."

"I'm a detective. Sneaking in places I'm not supposed to be is kind of my job."

"I'm a cop. Flashing my badge to get in places I'm not supposed to be is kind of _my_ job."

"Great."

"Fantastic."

Alex pulls his head back into his neck, like a turtle retreating into its shell. "Why are you being weird?"

"We're not being weird."

"We're being weird," Jackson corrects me, walking around to the other side of the bed to make it clear we're not on the same side in this argument. "She's mad at me because I should've jumped you earlier, that way you wouldn't have gotten shot at all."

"That's not true! I mean, it's true I'd prefer it if you hadn't been shot, Alex –"

"Thanks."

"But I'm not mad! And this is not weird!"

"Right, this is the opposite of weird." He has mad face. It never ends well when he has mad face. One time, when Reed had a date, I made him go with me to a Taylor Swift concert, and all these teenage girls fell in love with him at first sight, and he spent the entire night fending off underage blondes. They were all so short, he looked like an island in a sea of grabby hands. It was hilarious, but he had mad face, and he got revenge by spilling coffee on me after. Deliberately. How can I be sure it was deliberate? Because he did it three times, and he always waited until it had cooled before spilling it on me.

Except, as I observe Jackson's mad face, I don't feel a sense of impending doom. I'm more interested by the smattering of freckles across his nose, his pursed mouth. I guess he didn't have time to shave today.

Oh my God, Jackson Avery is not the apple (because he's that jerkoff of a snake).

"I have to…" I hope I don't look as sideswiped as I feel. "I have to go do a thing. A detective thing. Feel better, Alex."

"Later, Alex."

"But you just –"

I start walking as fast as I can down the hall, but he easily catches up with me. "Go away. I'm supposed to be mad at you."

"I just think it's weird that we're not even talking about it. You know, things are unresolved here."

"Which is why I told you to come to the apartment this evening."

"It is the evening."

"Later this evening!"

"You sure about that, Road Runner?" Catching hold of my elbow, Jackson pulls us up outside the door of an on-call room. "Because your hair practically stood on end when I came into Alex's room, and then you stared at me like I was from another planet, and then you said, 'I have to go do a detective thing', and then you made a break for it! April, come on!"

"Jackson," I say quietly. "Let go of my arm."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you holding my arm."

"Why?"

Well, Jesus, here it is. Now is the time to send me a sign that the freckles and the mouth and the scruff are tokens I can only cash in in Hell, because otherwise it's not fair to make us run into each other like this (yes, we're both members of the _Get Well Soon_, _Alex_ club and therefore this isn't such a big coincidence, but it really is when you remember we've only been apart for eight and a half hours). Now is the time, Jesus, because although I do understand it's very unfair to reduce my best friend to the freckles and the mouth and the scruff, they're _right there_, and he's drawing circles around the nub of bone that sticks out on the side of my elbow.

"Oh God." I kiss him, or he kisses me, I can't be sure who moves first. We kind of aim for and kind of fall through the door of the on-call room, somebody's hand groping around for the lock and turning it, somebody's hand yanking his shirt over his head and mine over mine.

"How the hell do you get this off?"

"Just pull it up. Pull it up, pull it up, _pull it up_."

My body tenses even before that magic moment, which creates a different, slightly more difficult set of sensations. I take a stab at multi-tasking and map his features with my fingertips, smoothing them over his forehead, down his nose, following the line of those cheekbones. My brain has already begun to fog up (how could it not, I'm up against the wall, anchored by his body, and he's muttering things and torturing me by running his thumbs along the perimeter of my bra because he knows I can feel it and it's not enough friction), but before it does, I want an answer to the question of 'why is he suddenly everything', and also _yes_ and also _God_ and also _Jackson_, _yes_, _Jackson_, _please_ (maybe my brain was always too foggy for this).

It's the sex talking again. I could return the favour and talk about it for hours, because it's something I've loved, this love. He changes me, and I love that. The closest I can get to a description is losing the ability to focus on more than one feeling at once, and the experience becomes like am old movie, flickering from frame to frame: the waistband of my skirt sits high on my ribs, tight, straining every time I inhale too deeply. One of my hands is wrapped around his arm, and he slides the hand of that arm down to me, and I feel what he's doing in his arm before I _feel_ it and that synchronicity verges on holy, heavenly choirs included.

When the angels have stopped singing, I mumble, "Still think it's weird that we're not talking about it?"

"Doing it to avoid talking about it is not the same as talking about it."

"But it was okay?" Was I too loud? Not loud enough? Did I participate enough? Do I smell of lasagne and tortilla casserole? When did I last pop a breath mint?

"It's always okay."

"Oh."

"April?"

"Mmmm?"

"It's always amazing."

"_Oh_." He's smiling at me, sincere and sincerely entertained by my being a basket case in absolutely every aspect of my life. Playing the caveman with me has to hurt his shoulder – don't dislocations require more than five minutes and a dose of sexual healing? – but that's not our problem. Our problem is that having sex with each other is amazing and means too much not to discuss, and there are far worse problems to have. I sigh. "Follow me home, and we'll talk about it. You might want to pick up some beer on the way, though."

"Can't talk about it sober?"

"Can barely talk to you at all sober."

"Hey. I was your friend first."

_And what are you now_, the voice that sounds like Libby's inquires.

"You were my _best_ friend first," I correct. Jackson grins wider, bends down to retrieve his shirt from the floor but only gets halfway down before straightening up and kissing me. It happens again: my lips go soft and achy when he pulls away (apparently, they didn't get the message I don't need a man to complete me), and I bob up on my toes and kiss again, just briefly, just sweetly.

It's too soon for this, too far to fall, too terrible an ending to even consider if it doesn't work out.

No, I don't need a man. I need a distraction.

_What about Matthew_? The voice that sounds like Kimmie's supplies helpfully.

Matthew is, first and foremost, proof denial is not just a river in Egypt. I'll admit, when I heard about Jackson and Alex, when I went home with Jackson, when I went all the way with Jackson, Matthew Taylor, minister and perfectly lovely person, didn't even cross my mind. He made his appearance when God shut me out, and I've been actively suppressing him ever since. Oh, Matthew. It's really not you, and it really is me. I'm the cheater. I'm the unfaithful one. I'm the one who's hurt you, and you don't even know it yet. I'm the one who's been silently using you as a point of comparison over the last day, and the memory of the way kissing you numbed me is bittersweet. It's not meant to be calming or soothing or clarifying, but that's not an excuse. Nothing can excuse what I've done.

Jackson sees me close off, but he's either too tired or too skilled in the handling of April Kepners (Ohio variety) to push it. "I'll stop for beer," are his only words.

"See you at home."

He's called me twice today – Matthew, that is. He probably wants to ask me how girls' night went, to mention details I've told him about my friends and score points for paying attention. I let him go to voicemail because I'm a cowardly lion or a tin woman with no heart, and because I owe him better than hearing it in my voice there's something changed. He calls me again as I drive back from the hospital, so I focus on signalling, turning, being simultaneously steamed about and nervous of the black Chrysler tailgating me. Big cars with big bumpers are killers. I try to persuade Jackson to trade in his Jeep for something smaller and greener a least once a year, but he just rolls his eyes and promises to buy a minivan when he needs space for a car seat, and not before (he's totally placating me, though – I don't think he thinks babies even need car seats, just off-roading harnesses).

There's hardly time to brush my teeth, which will make the beer taste weird but which I do anyway, before I hear the front door open and have to spit hurriedly and wipe the froth off my chin. _Note to self_:_ steal Jackson_'_s key_. My pulse begins to pitter-patter, since nobody told it I have to be objective and mature and work out what the hell I want before somebody takes it away from me. What would married mother Meredith Grey do?

Sum up, like the lawyer she is.

One, I am investigating the murders of Reed Adamson and Charles Percy and its link to the recent murder of another police officer, plus the attempted murder of Alex Karev and Jackson Avery. I have committed myself to this end on behalf of George O'Malley, the doctor who was convicted of the first two murders.

Two, I am dealing with the posttraumatic stress sustained as a result of the aforementioned murders with the help of Owen Hunt, Iraq veteran and chief of the Seattle Police Department and husband of my non-buddy building buddy, Cristina Yang. This involves a lot of soul searching and a lot of walking.

Three, I am currently in a casual sexual relationship with Jackson Avery, friend. It may not be casual or a relationship after I leave this bathroom. I plead guilty to the crime of having no no idea what I want from him or what I'm doing with him, but he makes me feel things I've never felt before, not with anyone.

Four, I am currently in a non-casual romantic relationship with Matthew Taylor, minister. Although there was no conversation about whether we were exclusive, my entering into any sort of relationship with the aforementioned Jackson Avery inevitably signifies the end of me and Matthew, exclusive or not.

Five, I'm not even good at being a lawyer in my head, so I emerge from the bathroom. I pad across the freshly vacuumed floor to the neatly made up couch, and I sit down on my side, and I tuck up my feet.

"I hope it's cold."

Jackson gives me an is-the-Pope-Catholic look, and passes me a bottle with the top popped. Then, with his eyes carefully fixed on his hands, he says, "So. Things are still unresolved here."

"So…" I take a sip (more like a hit) of beer, which freezes the back of my throat and sends chills trickling down into my stomach. I want to wrap my arms around my chest to warm myself, but then Jackson will offer me a blanket, or worse, his jacket, or worse, his arm, and once that particular snowball has started to roll, there's no stopping it before an entire Alpine village has been wiped out by my libido, Indiana Jones style. "I have to break up with Matthew."

"Do you want to break up with Matthew?"

"Um…"

Of course I don't want to break with Matthew. I hate that his feelings will be hurt, and I hate the symbolism of breaking up with one of God's representatives on earth in favour of not-even-a-little-bit-platonic activities with my best friend, who right now looks more like a slightly pissed off Greek god than himself.

Do I even need to break up with Matthew? What if I traded in slightly pissed off Greek gods for mere mortals? I mean, it's not like Jackson and I are anything more than a casual thing, not that I'd want us to be a thing. What we are, what we have is necessary to my living my life the way I like to live it, but what we are is as good as it's going to get, right? And we're not a thing. That's it. That's my decision: we're not a thing, and no matter what he says, no matter what he does or how he looks, we're not a thing. This is not a thing.

Not that he'd want us to be a thing.

I stare at my hands too, tinged pink by the icy bottle. "I know this is just sex to you, and it's –"

"It's not just sex!" His tone is disgusted – with me, at me.

"It's not?"

"No! And stop acting like I don't have any feelings, okay? I have feelings, I have a lot of them!"

"About _what_?" About the things I angst about? The way I sound, the way I smell? About the fact I went out to have a good time yesterday and ended the night with an epic sex romp with him, the cost of which was my virginity and my grip on reality?

"You! About you, April, for you!"

I guess I really did lose my grip on reality lat night. I went to bed with a friend, and I woke up with this guy who has these feelings for me which unleash a flock of butterflies in my stomach, which make me warm and ashamed and wonderful, which make me want to hide behind a cushion and scream down the phone to a girlfriend and never speak to him again. Conflicted is the word. I feel conflicted.

"After one day?" I ask weakly.

"Shut up," he snaps, just like Alex did. "It's not one day. I've always been here, we've always been here."

"Nuh-uh, no we have not. That's retroactive continuity."

"That's what now?"

With a genuine effort, I drag my gaze up, over the knees of his jeans, up the dark green thermal shirt which is a little bulkier in one shoulder after his trip to the hospital, all the way to his face. Never mind what I owe Matthew for now, I owe Jackson this. "You're changing who we were in the past so it fits in better with how we are in the present. You were always my friend, and you're always going to be my friend, but what's happening between us wasn't always going to happen. It wasn't an inevitably. We made choices – specifically, I made the choice to climb you like a tree – and they brought us here, but what we have hasn't always been there. Our friendship is not an excuse for us having feelings for each other."

"But you care about me."

"Of course I do."

"No, April." He removes the beer bottle from my hand and places it on a nearby coaster (I trained him well). Then, he wraps our hands around each other, thumbs lying on top, like we're about to declare a thumb war or swear a blood oath. "You _care_ about me."

"You cared about me first." It's my last line of defence, that childishness which makes other people find me annoying.

That childishness, he sees straight through.

"April."

"I want you, Jackson," I admit, which isn't admitting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but is as close as I plan to get tonight. "I want _you_."

His thumb barely brushes against mine. "What are the rules?" His voice is low. "You do one, I do one."

"You don't tell anyone, I don't tell anyone." Tentatively, I place my thumb over his, so much smaller, the colours contrasting. No, I can't explain why I'm being coy with someone whose clothes I ripped off less than an hour ago. "Not unless there's a terrorist in a suicide vest threatening to blow up the Space Needle unless you reveal your relationship status. It's nothing against you, I'm just not ready for the rest of the world to have opinions about us and to invite us on double dates. Not yet. It's our secret little bubble." _It_'_s our secret little non-specific relationship bubble_, I add to myself.

"Okay." He slips his thumb out from under mine, but only to lay it back on top. I refuse to smile (he is not charming me, because that was in no way charming). "If I'm here, I sleep here – in your bed, with you. No more couch."

He is _not_ charming me. "But it's such a nice couch…"

"It's a nice bed."

"With such nice cushions…"

"No bed, no bubble."

"You get up earlier than I do."

"So I'll get up quietly. Besides," Jackson continues far too casually, his head on one side. "If I slept over, maybe we could try a few things. See if you think any of them are worth getting up early for."

_Maybe we could try a few things_.

No.

_See if you think any of them are worth getting up early for_.

No, no, no.

My brain is fogging up again.

"You're trying to bribe me with sex!"

"And?"

"That's illegal!"

"Unless you're a judge, it's immoral, not illegal. And you know, since I'm a police officer, while your job is sneaking around trying to catching people committing insurance fraud, you kind of have to do what I say."

"Are you _ordering_ me to be bribed?"

"Nope." He winds a piece of my hair around ane around one of his fingers. "But if you agree to be bribed, I hear the pros seriously outweigh the cons."

"You're so full of it."

"No bed, no bubble."

I ignore his hand moving from my hair to my lower back, slowly and subtly pulling me closer. "If you're here, you sleep in my bed with me," I concede. "Rule. But there's a rule I need from you you're not going to like."

"What is it?"

We started this conversation at opposite ends of the couch. Now we're next to and at right angles to each other, my feet against his thigh, his body oriented towards me, still locked in a cold thumb war. I gently extricate myself, tucking my hands safely under my arms. "I'm going to get weird about Jesus sometimes," is probably not what he was expecting. "I've been planning on saving myself for my husband since I was a little girl, and breaking a promise like that has consequences. You know I'm crazy. You know I spin out whenever I do anything spontaneous. My rule is I need you to not let me hurt you." I need this, even if it is too soon for it, too far to fall, too terrible an ending to the best relationship of my life if it doesn't work out. "No matter what I say about how I see myself and how Jesus must see me, it has nothing to do with you. You're great. It's just…a promise like that has consequences," I finish lamely. "That's all."

"I can't promise not get hurt, that's not going to work." He's gone all Greek god again, this time pensive rather than pissed. "What I can do is try not to mix up the way you feel about us and the way you believe Jesus feels about us. That's what I can do."

"Rule?"

"Rule."

One type of tension ebbs away, and another decides it's high time for high tide (even if my feet are the only part of me still touching him).

"You okay?"

"Fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

There's a pause.

"Want to have sex?"

There's another, slightly shorter pause.

"Yeah."

_**~#~**_

We try a few things. I like all of them. We try a few more things. One of them is too much for Jackson's shoulder, despite his being practically impervious to pain while we were trying all the other things. I go to sleep smiling (and mumbling stupid things about how we should both quit work and just do this all the time), and I wake up smiling (and sweaty, because there's a guy heating up my sheets who wasn't there before, and it's going to take a while for me to adjust).

"No."

"Hey, it's your fault I have to go to therapy with Hunt."

"_No_," he says, determinedly and indistinctly, his face smooshed into the pillow.

"When are you off until?"

"Friday."

"Then I'll make an effort to be back by Friday."

"April…"

"Jackson."

I pull the covers up and tuck him in, which quiets him down. It's actually three minutes past five in the morning, and although Owen Hunt is undeniably an early bird, but there's someone I know who gets up even earlier.

I've never actually visited this address, but I press the buzzer firmly once I've checked it is the right place. The sidewalks steam when the sun rises and dries out the rain of the night before, but it's too early even for that. I stand in the grey pre-dawn light, shivering in my grey overcoat and dance from foot to frozen foot while my stomach makes angry sounds.

When the door opens, the first thing I see is navy blue sweats (why is my life a never-ending succession of runners?)

"April?" Matthew's surprised, and pleased, and so much easier to read by comparison. What if I traded in pensive Greek gods for mere mortals? What if that were something I actually did?

"Hi, Matthew." I clear my throat to cover my inability to smile. "May I come in?"


	11. Ghost

**11. Ghost**

Matthew Taylor, minister, owns his own home. It's brown and basic and masculine, but it's a whole double storey house, fully furnished (from what I can see of it). He directs me towards the kitchen with a light touch on the small of my back, but I barely feel it. I'm all feeling-ed out, and my hands are already shaking.

"What's up?" Matthew's kitchen is a few years out of date, but it has a lovely tile-topped breakfast bar, which is where we sit. His eyes are warm and anxious (because he thinks there's something wrong with me, not with ust). "Since you're here so early without calling, I'm guessing you haven't stopped by to organise our next date?" He studies me for a minute longer, and then his face falls. He's seen it. "You've stopped by to tell me there's not going to be another date, haven't you?"

"Matthew, I –"

He cuts me off, eager to please, eager to mend. "Is it something I've done? Were we going too fast, was I putting too much pressure on you? The last thing I want to do is make you feel uncomfortable, April, because I respect you so much. As a person –"

"It's not –"

"As a woman –"

"It's not anything you did, I promise." I stare down at the blue and white tiles while I figure out what to say next. "It's something I did. It's something I did, so I can't see you anymore."

"Oh." His tone becomes more clipped. "There's someone else. You – with someone else."

"I – yes, Matthew. I'm so sorry."

"It was Avery, right?" When I look up at him again, he isn't looking at me. His gaze is fixed on a point slightly above my left shoulder. He swallows reflexively. "I get it, he's a good looking guy, he's a cop, he's practically a superhero. _Jackson Avery_." Matthew's pronunciation is ironic, his expression hard. "Your best friend. The guy you tell all your secrets to. The guy you told me I didn't have to worry about."

"I didn't know _I_ had to worry about –"

"Were you drunk?" He asks abruptly, eyes flicking back to my face. "Did he persuade you into it, was there some sort of biological imperative at play? Was it a mistake?"

"No," I say, very quietly. "It wasn't a mistake. I started it."

"And now you're finishing with me."

"I am so, _so_ sorry."

"I'm sure you are. I mean, you mostly seem like this incredibly sweet person, except when you're breaking up with a guy because he doesn't walk on water."

"Matthew!" It comes out a little sharp, but he's a pastor, and no matter how upset he is, he doesn't get to disrespect Jesus like that in front of me. "It's not anything Jackson has that you don't. On paper, you and I are perfect for each other. We believe in the same things, we want the same things. It's not because Jackson's a cop or can walk on water – and I'm aware I don't exactly have the higher moral ground here, but you should be ashamed of yourself for bringing Him into this – it wasn't something either of us could've predicted. It happened, so I have to live with the consequences, and one of those is losing you, even as a friend, since I know you're not going to want anything to do with me after today. If you think the guilt of that isn't eating away at me, then you don't know me at all." I take a breath. "I can't express how sorry I am for hurting you. I literally can't. I could say I'm sorry a thousand times, and it wouldn't be enough."

"People say they're sorry to make themselves feel better," Matthew remarks. "Not those they hurt."

"Maybe." My hands are shaking so hard, I have to hide them under the edge of the bar. He doesn't need a reason to go easy on me. I don't deserve him going easy on me. "But I'm still sorry. This is not who I am. This is not what I planned."

"You do realise you're feeding the stereotype that men and women can't be friends?"

"I do."

He sighs. "Then I guess it's not my forgiveness you need. It's His."

"I know I have no right to ask…"

"But you're going to."

"He's not speaking to me." I raise my chin, indicating the ceiling. "He hasn't been speaking to me since it happened."

"Thanks for that."

"I'm sorry!" But I've never known to quit while I'm ahead. "I could always talk to Him about anything, about work, about my friends, about you and I…it wasn't like I got claps of thunder in return, but He was always there. He was in the room with me when I prayed. Now, the room is empty. I feel terrible about what I did to you, and terrible for breaking my promise to Him, and I can't handle the thought that I might have destroyed my relationship with God forever."

Matthew folds his hands. "You probably have." He sounds more cheered by the confession my faith may have lost me (instead of the other way around) than by any of my apologies. "I never noticed it before, but you seem like the type of person who doesn't know a good thing until it's gone."

"Matthew –"

"You can see yourself out."

_**~#~**_

"April?"

I could hold it in with Hunt, who understands how much is going on inside a person if all they can do is walk in circles for an hour, not speaking, mustering a 'hi' and a 'bye' but nothing else. If I can reach my office, which is home in this game of tag the universe is playing with me, I'll be fine. I'll call Mrs Mueller and tell her her cat is being kept at the animal shelter until she has time to pick him up and be on the opposite end of a lecture about pet care; I'll answer all the email inquiries I've been ignoring (even though my income isn't so healthy right now); I'll drink coffee, I'll put on hand cream, and I'll start the day fresh.

But I can't be certain I can hold it in with Derek Shepherd.

"April!"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," I chant, fighting to get my key in the door and to get inside before he can get a proper look at me. "I'm late, and I have a client, and I –"

"April." He's caught up with me, and his fingers close around the door handle, halting my progress. "What's wrong?"

Matthew is perfect for me on paper, but Derek is…he's just perfect. There's the perfect amount of silver in his hair, and his eyes are perfectly blue, and his tie perfectly matches his eyes, and his expression is so kind and so genuinely concerned about me that I melt, which means I turn to water by bursting into tears. Because Derek is so perfect, he doesn't speak for a minute or two. He gathers me against him and rubs my back at perfectly regular intervals, which is when I decide I couldn't be Meredith, because if I had to deal with all this perfection every day, my feelings of inadequacy would probably give me a heart attack.

When my sobs have turned to snuffles, he says, "I'm not going to say, 'it can't be that bad', since it must be really bad to make you this upset. It must _suck_."

Derek Shepherd uses the word 'suck'.

This man can do no wrong.

"Everything is _awful_." I keep hiccupping. My voice is draggy with tears. "God broke up with me, and I broke up with Matthew, and he says God will never forgive me for sleeping with Jackson, and it's not just sex, but Jesus isn't talking to me, and I need him to tell me what to do!" I break down all over again, bumping my head against Derek's shoulder. He places a restraining hand on my hair and rocks us from side-to-side, shushing me the way I imagine he shushes his children.

And then he focuses on the least helpful thing on the planet.

"You slept with Avery."

"Uh-huh."

"Mark's Avery."

"Yeah."

"Lexie's Avery."

I squint up at him, and he chuckles. "I'm sorry, _April_'_s_ Avery – I'm not laughing at you, I promise." He pulls a handkerchief out of thin air (did he and Owen Hunt take the same whipping-things-out-of-nowhere class?) and dabs at my blotchy face, still so perfectly composed that I wouldn't be surprised to hear he has a career cleaning up after girls like me on the side. "Where is Jackson now?"

"At my place."

Derek chuckles again. "I'm sorry, I'm not – chalk one up for Kepner." He becomes serious when he's finished mopping my face, folding his handkerchief into a perfect square and tucking it into my shirt pocket. "Breakups are never easy," he tells me. "And no matter what anyone says, they're never amicable. For a breakup to work, people have to get hurt, and there's nothing amicable about hurting someone you once cared about. What they are not is an excuse to be cruel, or to divulge whatever you were holding back during the relationship." Placing his hands gently on my shoulders, those eyes ratchet up to laser beam intensity. "I don't have much pull with God, and neither, I think, does Matthew. What he claims God may or may not think of you has no effect on what will be. You know I was married before?" I nod. "Well, Addison cheated on me, and I cheated on her, and look where we are now. She has a husband and a baby, I have a wife and two children, and we call each other every few months to check in."

"But cheating is _bad_," I remind the floor of the hallway.

"It is, and it hurts people, and you shouldn't do it. My point, April, is the only person who's going to punish you for your mistakes is you, and the only way to make amends for your mistakes is to learn from them and move on. I fell in love with Meredith, but I almost lost her because I couldn't forgive myself for falling for her in the first place. Do you see what I'm saying?"

I do. "That I shouldn't listen to Matthew. That there isn't going to be a lightning bolt or a pillar of fire descending to smite me down. That breakups are always bad, and the best way to get over this one is to make the most of what I have and not poison it with the past."

Derek beams (perfectly). "And that's why you'd be a crappy lawyer. You're too good a person."

"I _cheated_ on someone."

"Yes, you did, but what's more important is that you cheated on him with _Avery_. Who didn't see that coming?"

_**~#~**_

There used to be a Thai couple living above me who liked to cook with the vents open. Since their dinnertime was about the same time as I arrived home from work, the hallway would smell fragrant and slightly mysterious when I walked out of the elevator. Tonight, the air is fragrant, but in a much more familiar way.

"That'd better not be linguini with clams."

Jackson doesn't even twitch. "I hope you're okay with spaghetti."

I am, but that's not the problem. "You're cooking."

"That's what people usually do in kitchens."

"You're cooking dinner."

"Are you in some sort of stating the obvious contest, or –"

"Jackson." Dropping my jacket by the door (which I _never_ do, because it only encourages him to be messy), I cross the room and hop up onto the counter beside the stove. This means I can pay attention to both him and the sauce is: wet, red and unbelievably appetising. "For me. You are cooking dinner _for me_."

He gets it. "I…am cooking dinner for you." His gaze goes up my knee to my thigh to me. "Hi."

"Hi." I smile back, and almost set myself on fire trying to kiss him. My problem is obviously not spaghetti, or the green salad he's made to go with spaghetti, or the bottle of wine warming on the other side of the stove. My problem, not that it's a problem (it's actually the opposite), is that I get to come home to Jackson cooking me dinner, and that I get to kiss Jackson (although he put a stop to that before I could kiss him and disturb the marinara), and maybe Derek Shepherd is right. Maybe the worst thing I could do would be spoil all of the above by worrying about anyone else's opinion, ordinary or divine.

"You go back to active duty on Friday," I recall, stepping down for the sake of the pasta sauce. "Isn't that a little soon? Are you even taking your pain meds?"

"It's two more days, yes, I'm taking my meds, no, making you dinner isn't too much for me, yes, I passed my reflex test with flying colours. I can lift a pot, I can hold a gun, and I'm good to jump Alex again if necessary, so you can be the one to lay one on him and profess your sloppy yet undying love this time."

"It was romantic!"

"Romantic? Maybe. Inevitable? Definitely." Obviously I trust him, but I still study the range of motion in his arm as he crosses to the sink, drains the pasta and tips it back into the pan. "Alex is acting like he never saw it coming when you'd have be blind not to see how gone he was on Wilson from day one." Finally, he dumps the marinara on top of the spaghetti and begins to stir.

"They're going to talk about us like that."

"What? Who's talking about us?"

"Arizona will, and Sloan –" Turned up at my door and told me to become sex buddies with his protégé, which I never got around to mentioning to said protégé. Oops. "Sloan will be all, 'blah blah blah, there's no such thing as platonic male-female friendships, blah blah blah, I hope you did me proud and made sure she couldn't sit comfortably for a week, blah blah blah, I have to go bench press a bear now."

Jackson freezes, the wooden spoon still in his hand. "April?"

"What?"

"_Can_ you sit down comfortably?"

"Not answering that."

"That means you can't."

"No, it doesn't."

"So you can."

"You tell me, you were there."

Carefully, consideringly, he puts down the spoon, which makes a squishy sound. Then, he turns to me, and the look on his face has a lot to do with appetite but nothing to do with meatballs. His hand starts on my thigh, but then it goes up, and just keeps on going. Our gazes are locked. My breathing gets heavier, which probably pumps up his ego another few points, but whatever. He's the one who cooked dinner. He's the one who didn't want me to leave this morning. How it happened, I have no idea, but I have the upper hand here (when you ignore the fact that all I have to is hear is voice, and I go warm and tingly and automatically have to squeeze my knees together and try to be a lady about it).

"This is weird," I say (but quietly, because his mouth is only just on mine, and these tiny tremors run through me every time one of us moves).

"It's weird," he affirms. "Bad weird?"

"Good weird."

Since I didn't get to kiss him for the good of the sauce, I'm due. It makes me giddy in the teenage girl way I've read about but never experienced, even without the other part, the part that comes after. It makes me want the part that comes after, but mostly I give up on thinking about before and after in favour of how how he runs his tongue along the seam of my lips like a question, waiting to see if they'll part, waiting until I'm ready.

The Italians got it right with their three hour mealtimes.

"Rule," Jackson murmurs. "When I ask if you can sit down comfortably, you have to answer, and you have to be honest."

"I…can sit down just fine, thank you."

"Then I clearly need to get more creative."

And wouldn't you know it, that's when we're interrupted by someone dropping a petrol bomb through my mail slot.

"Seriously?" I yell as the bottle spins across my living room, spitting fire. "I just bought that couch!" Even as the words leave my mouth, my super expensive cream-coloured couch (plus my cushions with birds stencilled on them) catch light. The smell is unreal. My head is spinning. My body is afraid, juddering from the amount of adrenaline pumping into my blood like oil from leaky tanker, but all my brain is is pissed. "I was going to pay more for a building with a doorman, but I prefer not to overcharge the elderly, asshole!"

"April!"

"No! No more superhero crap!" I'm so steamed that when I smack both palms against Jackson's chest, I actually manage to move him, shoving him backwards towards the sink. "I broke up with Matthew, and then I cried on Derek Shepherd, and then some _asshole_ mailed me a Molotov cocktail, and I am _done_ with men for today!" There's a fire extinguisher bolted to the wall by the fridge that was supplied with the apartment, so I grab it, and both the extinguisher and bracket come away in my hands, which is kind of neat. I yank out the pin and aim the hose at the heart of the fire, the way you're supposed to. "Okay, Jesus, I get it! It may not be a _pillar_ of fire, but I get it!" It takes a while, and I have to practically empty the tank onto the bomb itself, but I do it, and the extinguisher clatters to the charred floor, and my inability to breathe has nothing to do with smoke inhalation.

I could've died.

We could've died.

My beautiful couch is toast.

I open my mouth and try to inhale, but everything that goes in whooshes back out, leaving my lungs burning. I don't decide to sit, but I find myself sitting, and then I find myself lying, lying on my back on the floor, staring at the mess created by flame and foam.

It's been a really long couple of days.

"April!"

I don't fight it when Jackson comes to my rescue this time. I can't. He checks my airway, sees that I can breathe but that for some reason, I won't. He pushes me onto my side (I don't resist, because I can't), gets up close behind me and wraps his arms around me, pinning mine against my chest. "Breathe," he orders, and hits me hard in the ribs. I choke. "I know you can," he says, and hits me again. One more time, the air rushes out of my lungs, but this time, it rushes back in. It makes me dizzy, and the floor tilts, and I want to throw up, and I'm going to have a hell of a bruise on my back tomorrow, but I'm breathing. I dig my nails into him like he's the only thing between me and the light at the end of the tunnel, and I keep making these really nasty whooping sounds, but I'm breathing.

Ladies and gentlemen, April Kepner is back in the game.

"April?"

"Hi."

"How are you doing?"

And this is why you shouldn't engage in premarital sex. You'll have to end it with a minister, and someone will try to murder you, and you'll spend all your time wondering what the relationship between you and your best friend actually means, when that's time you could be spending discovering a cure for cancer or, I don't know, _how to take care of yourself and stop getting yourself into these situations_. "It's been a really long couple of days," I report.

"Yeah."

There isn't anything else to do but lie on the floor a while longer. The air is acrid, no longer filled with the delicious scents of Tuscany in July (not that I've ever been to Tuscany in July, but I like to think it smells of tomatoes and basil and oregano).

"How do you know it was a guy?" Jackson asks.

"What?"

"You said you were 'done with men' because 'some asshole' mailed you a Molotov cocktail."

"Women use irons more often." My brain feels disconnected from my tongue, but it seems to be getting the details right. "Women cook more often. Women get burned, and women don't burn other women. Unless it's jealousy-motivated, most acid attacks are carried out by men."

"I'll remember that."

"You should."

"I'm going to call Sloan now."

"Okay."

It takes less than ten minutes for far too many members of the SPD to fill up my formerly lovely home, plus guests. Lexie Grey is first to notice the blackened pot of pasta sauce on the stove, which she switches off without a word before taking the recently vacated space beside me. "Bet you were hoping for the fire department, huh?"

"I'd like to be sure nothing's going to spontaneously combust."

"Did somebody show you the outside of your door?"

"No…"

She took a picture of it with her phone, cool as a cop's girlfriend. Sprayed across the still mostly white wood is _O'MURDERER _in big bold black letters.

"Oh."

"At least you can be sure there isn't some random arsonist running around Seattle. Someone was definitely sending a message."

Jo is too impatient to wait for the crime scene techs, and is busily dusting for prints around the mail slot. "We'll get him," she promises. At her side, Stephanie grimaces sympathetically at me, but she's one hundred percent here for Jackson. If she weren't helping Jo, she'd be happily orbiting the spot where he stands, pulled in by his own personal gravity. Neither jealous nor amused nor anything but exhausted, I stare at the bare bones of what used to be my couch. That was me in couch form, or at least, who I'd like to be. That couch was elegant, and appropriate, and nothing bad had ever happened to it. Of course, seeing as it was my couch, it was never going to remain unscathed for long.

My view is blocked and internal monologue memorial ended by Hunt, who smiles sadly at me and brushes soot off his t-shirt.

"Do you have somewhere to stay, Kepner?"

"She can stay with me."

Sloan takes that as his cue to jump in, shaking his head at Jackson's offer. Amazingly, there isn't a speck of dirt on him. "Sorry, Avery, but until we determine which one of you was the intended victim, you're not going anywhere near her. I forbid it." He shoots me a conciliatory glance, but he knows I know he'd use me as a human firebreak if Jackson's life was on the line.

"It's my apartment, I'm the –"

"Could be one, could be both." He overrules me with a flash of his scarily blue eyes.

Why, even in a disaster area, am I surrounded by men with eyes prettier than mine?

"But why –"

"Avery's a police officer," Hunt reminds me gently. "And police officers are currently being targeted by a person or persons still unidentified. He may have been targeted before, with Karev as an added bonus – or, as your door suggests, it could be you're a private investigator getting too close to something someone doesn't want investigated." He clears his throat, straightens his spine and is suddenly a million times more official. "Besides, you're the Mercy West two. It could be him. It could be you. It could be both of you."

"Which is why you'll be resting that shoulder in the suite I've reserved for you at the Four Seasons." Sloan claps his hand on Jackson's other shoulder like he's giving him a birthday present. "And Kepner will make alternate arrangements. Little Grey, with me."

"You're being an ass," she comments as they head towards the hall.

"Am I?"

"Kepner?"

The room is gettingswimmy. I bite my tongue on what I want to say, which is that I'm staying here, and I'm going to take a long bath in my own tub and get a good night's sleep in my own bed, and screw fumes and fire department regulations. That won't fly with Hunt, though, and he'll see straight through me if I try to lie. My eyelids are hot and prickly. My chest aches. "I'll go to Callie and Arizona's," I decide. "They have a spare room, and I can always…" I can always _what_? Compensate them for their trouble? Forewarn them I might be the focus of a madman with access to spray paint and petrol? "I'll go to Callie and Arizona's," I say again, more firmly.

"I'll take you there." Jackson puts his arm around me, and unlike Sloan, Hunt doesn't do anything to stop him.

"You'll be fine at the Four Seasons."

"I need a minute."

"What's –"

"Just a minute, April. Please."

But it's more than a minute. His silence lasts the entire car ride to Callie's, the short walk across the bar (Heather, the substitute bartender, salutes us because she's too kooky to wave), all the way up the stairs to the narrow hallway that acts as the entryway to Casa Calzona. I stand awkwardly outside their door, unsure whether to knock, unsure how long a minute lasts in Jackson terms.

"Uh…" _Has it been a minute yet_? _What_'_s going on with you_? _Are you mad at me_? "I'll see you soon?"

Recently, I've been making a lot of speeches (speeches in my head, that is) about the unrealistic expectations created by romance movies. Fred and Ginger wouldn't have behaved like that if they were dating in the digital age, and Ryan and Rachel would've caught colds from kissing in the rain like that. The long and short of it is that this is the scene when Jackson's supposed to pour his heart out to me and I'm supposed to give him mine, but that's not what he does. Here in the real world, he removes my bag from my shoulder and zips my jacket up to my chin

"You broke up with Matthew."

"I didn't do it for you."

"You put out the fire."

"You made me breathe."

And in return for his 'minute', I get that romance movie moment. He pulls me in, not with his own personal gravity but with my zipper, and I have to go or get throttled. I have to go, and not only because I don't enjoy having my air supply cut off, but also because I _have_ to go. It's the same as having to kiss him that first time, an imperative that has nothing to do with the continuance of the human race. He doesn't mess around or prolong the wait, just presses his mouth hard against mine, crushing my absent opposition. He was scared, I realise: for him, for me. He _is_ scared, and so am I.

The reason I talk to myself so much is that it's safe to say anything I want when no one else is listening. I can say that when I'm kissing Jackson, I'm smelling the way he smells, and thinking perhaps I should buy him a Chapstick, except I don't want to, because the slight roughness of his lips does something to me.

_Dear God_, _please don_'_t let me feel it_. _Dear God_,_ if I do have to feel it_, _please don_'_t let me say it_. _Don_'_t let it come flying out of my mouth and ruin everything_.

But hey, maybe I'm not the one destined to pop our secret little non-specific relationship bubble. Maybe that privilege is reserved for Callie Torres, who opened her door without either of us noticing and who's now leaning against the frame, smirking.

"Well, well, well." If she had a moustache, she'd be twirling it. "What have we here?"


	12. Fire Escape

**12. Fire Escape**

"And sure, there are things I'll definitely miss, like smacking him when he needs to be smacked and not following it up with, 'oh Grandma, what nicely defined biceps you have', but I'm happy, you know? I'm really happy."

"That's great, April." Arizona sits forward in her chair and smiles at me like I'm a moron, her expression simultaneously sweet and slightly patronising. "But we just thought you two finally kissed, we didn't realise you'd…but you know what? That's great. Straight people sex is great, and I fully support you doing it with Jackson, so…go you!" She even pumps her fist in the air, like I might be too moronic to get the message otherwise (it's a shame she's right, considering how I just treated her and Callie to a ten minute lecture about my new hobby and walking the metaphorical line between friendship and more, with sex thrown in for added spice – basically, burning to death in my apartment would've been less painful. Why didn't that arsonist leave a forwarding address?)

Her wife, by contrast, is simply smug. "And, as predicted, Avery took you down the rabbit hole and you found out your body is a wonderland. Good for you."

"Isn't that a John Mayer song?"

"Speaking as someone with experience of what you're experiencing, I can confirm that the sex is hot," she replies airily, ignoring my accusation of plagiarism. "Plus, Pretty Boy totally has the hots for you. The 'if you like it, then you should put a ring on it after a couple of years of steady dating' hots."

Arizona's eyes are on stalks. "What are we talking here?"

"We're talking Swayze. We're talking she may as well go put on a pink dress and not do anything with her hair, because any minute now he's going to mambo through that door, and damn what her daddy thinks of him."

"Oh my."

"As I predicted," Callie reminds us complacently. "As we predicted, more accurately, since we're smart as well as attractive." She seems to suddenly remember why I'm here, and nods her decision. "And of course you can stay with us, so long as you don't mind being pelted with cereal if you don't know all the words to _Itsy Bitsy Spider_. Sofia's going through a difficult phase."

"Is she up? Can she hang out a while?"

When Callie Torres smiles, it's like the sun breaking over her face. She can be both so menacing and so omniscient, you forget she's actually really pretty, that she wears pretty shades of deep purple and red and rarely ever forgets to put on earrings, the way I do. I've never met a person who inhabits their body as well as Callie does, or who's so proud of what their body produced. Even though Sofia wasn't a choice she made, even though she was the result of this huge fight between Callie and Arizona that they rarely mention, even though she and Mark were both doing what they were doing to avoid pining after the women they loved, Callie was a parent from the second she found out she was going to be one.

She leaves the room still beaming, and I hear her call, "Princess Sofia?" Arizona, cute as a button and, as a paediatrician, less susceptible to the baby bait and switch, waits.

"Don't."

"Hunt is kidding himself – or, more likely, Mark is insisting that Hunt kids himself – if he seriously thinks you weren't the target. It was your apartment that was hit, and the message on the door refers to a case you're working on." There are spots of blood under her fingernails she must not have seen when she was shutting up shop today. Most of Arizona's patients can't afford her services, and I suspect she does minor illegal surgery on the side for those who can't afford the hospital either. She does all that, and then she comes home and goes straight into Mama Mode, kissing her wife and blowing raspberries on the chubby belly of a toddler who babbles in an adorable mixture of English and Spanish as Callie deposits her on my lap. She senses the tension between us immediately.

"I'm going to go down and relieve Brooks."

"Brooks?"

"Heather."

"It could have been either of us," I say as Callie makes a tactful exit. "They're calling us the Mercy West two again."

"What does that even mean?"

"The name?"

"Yes."

Sofia's growing getting heavy. Her hair is black and silky, and she weighs me down like an anchor, perched on my knees, chewing her fingers, not caring she's passed back and forth like a parcel at a birthday party every time I visit. I hold her warm little body against me, focus on her fading baby scent. "The first part is just a random five letter word. There was _–_ a league, I guess? _–_ and each team was assigned a name: Hound, Sudan, Fancy. Team Fancy took a lot of crap."

"And the second part?"

"The second part is an acronym of the compass points: W for West, E for East, S for South." I use Arizona's daughter shifting in my arms as an excuse to avoid her next question, but she's sharp as a tack and prompts me.

"And T?"

"T is for trigger. It means the best marksman in a group."

"And the best marksman in your group was…"

"Me." Our formation was diamond-shaped and went me, then Jackson, then Charles, then Reed, arranged so there was always a guy on one side of you and a girl on the other. A woman is less threatening and less likely to be attacked on entry, so having a woman take point reduces the chance of casualties straight off the bat. If your best marksman is also a woman, she's also more likely to be able to take the kill shot before she herself is shot than a man. That aptitude feels like something to be ashamed of now, set against the backdrop of dead Charles, dead Reed. We were the Mercy West four. We are the Mercy West two.

Jackson was East. He was my right hand.

I was his left.

"I shot a practice dummy through the eye once, so I was Trigger. Reed's aim always went off with the recoil, and she and I were supposed to patrol together."

"Because you were the better marksman."

"Jackson would've been the best after a few more weeks. He kept sneaking off to the range, I kept pretending I didn't notice. He's a fast learner, annoyingly fast." Sofia's head is lolling, and I hoist her up, cradle her against my shoulder. One pudgy arm goes around my neck, which weirdly makes me want to cry. My career is important to me, and waiting for the right time and the right guy is important to me, but I know in my bones that I was meant to be a mother. I won't ever be complete unless the time comes when I'm constantly complaining about night feeds and poopy diapers, where I'm pushing a stroller or wearing a sling. I won't have been all I can be if I don't do the whole miracle of life thing, and I'm pretty sure just the once isn't going to be enough.

"You're a natural," Arizona says softly.

"I grew up on a farm, you have to be able to handle a gun."

"I meant with her."

"I have three sisters." I have three _married_ sisters. "Libby has twin boys, and Kimmie has three more, and Alice is trying, and she'll probably have a boy. Boys are meant to be easier, but Kepner kids are never this quiet." Other than tiny huffs and puff, Sofia is absolutely silent. "You'd never guess she's half Sloan."

"Mark's a lot of things, but he gives good gene."

"Would you ever…"

"It would be nice for Sofia to have a sibling she's actually related to," Arizona allows, lifting the child whose biology never bothers her into her arms and laying her back like a baby. "But I couldn't have a bit of Mark floating around inside me for nine months, not even for his naturally low cholesterol." She looks at me more directly, narrows her eyes. "You and Jackson aren't together, are you? You've admitted you have feelings for each other, but you're still not together."

"If you hadn't noticed, my life is sort of a train wreck right now."

"You seem fine to me. For someone whose house was set on fire, you seem remarkably fine." Her hand settles on top of mine, applying just enough pressure. I feel her hesitate before she speaks. "April, do you –"

"Don't say it!" Because if she says it, it's real, and if it's real, then there's a reason why my mind is full of fluffy robes, fluffy towels and fluffy pillows embroidered with the Four Seasons logo. I'm committed to my life being a train wreck for a little while, to everything I feel coming down to a series of coincidences – what an awesome coincidence I love having sex with my best friend, and what a fantastic coincidence him knowing where my secret candy stash is makes something go _click_ in my brain, and what an amazing coincidence I always want to talk to him and fight with him and be with him, like I always have, like I always will.

My face is hot.

My shirt is sticking under my arms.

Yep, burning to death would've been less painful.

"Not saying it doesn't make it not true."

"I know that!"

"Then why not say it?"

"Because I don't want to!"

"Do you think he won't say it back?"

"I don't _want_ him to say it back!" I hiss, since Sofia is off in Lullaby Land and doesn't deserve to be woken by a pissed off P.I. "I want to keep a lid on it until we break up, or whatever it is people who aren't together do when they're not doing it anymore, and then I'll cry and eat ice cream and watch Westerns and _get over it_, and then everything we'll go back to the way it was, and I won't lose the only one of the Mercy West four who's still around for me to lose!"

Arizona raises her eyebrows with a kind of coolness I can only dream of. "And that's what you're going with?"

"What's what I'm going – what?"

"Not that you're scared of getting into something real. Not that you don't trust the people who claim to care about you, because you still don't believe there's anything much worth caring about. April." Her hand closes around mine, trapping me, pressure too intense, perception too acute. "If you believe in God, really believe, then you have to believe He has a plan for you. You weren't supposed to die instead of Charles because Reed was your patrol partner. You weren't supposed to die instead of Reed because you should've been on point and shot first. You're not responsible."

I struggle, but the hold she has on me (and over me) is strong. "It's a cliché. We're a cliché."

"No, you're not. What you are is making excuses for being scared to have someone see all of you."

"I know you're not exactly clued up on straight people sex, but Jackson has seen _all of me_."

She 'God!'s under her breath. "Does he see how guilty you feel? Does he see you thinking you'll never measure up to someone like Lexie, who had him first, or Meredith, who takes no prisoners, or Alex's Jo, who doesn't give a damn and still gets everything she wants? We've been through this before, April, too many times. Does he see who you are? Do you let him?"

How much can one person really see of another person, though? Someone you see on the street is just ears and jeans and grocery bags. Someone you see at work is just jurisprudence and coffee and mail merges. Someone you see every day is just opinions and memories and private jokes. Jackson sees as much as he needs to see of me. He's seen me at my lowest, he's seen me pick myself up. He's seen me naked, he's seen me sleeping, he's seen me wet from rain and standing in line at the store and in my oldest PJs on a Sunday morning. So what if there are things I don't say? That's the way to stay two people rather than one, two planets whose orbits touch rather than two planets who live in each other's pockets and can't turn without each other's permission (have I overdone it with the planets metaphors yet?)

_Thank God I don_'_t have to ensure certain people_ '_see_'_ me by mentioning every single thing that pops into my head_.

No, I don't have to mention every single thing.

No, I don't have to mention _a_ single thing.

No, I don't have to say a word. He went to Sloan for me without a word, he picked up soup for me without a word, he let me run out on him and come back to him and kiss him, all without a word.

No, because he knows where my secret candy stash is.

No, because he _sees_.

Arizona smiles her gorgeous smile at me. "He does, doesn't he?"

"Uh…"

"Do you want to…"

"I'm just going to…"

"Okay then."

"Okay."

"I will see you later."

"Don't tell Sloan."

"I won't tell…okay!"

My body has to catch up with my brain as I slide into the driver's seat of the car he drove over here, turn the key. _You are together_, I inform myself. _And you can be together without saying it_,_ and without going too far_,_ and if he ever asks you to say it_, _you_'_ll say it_, _but you probably won_'_t need to_, _because he knows_. _Oh_, _and you came this close to dying less than an hour ago_, _and your adrenaline-fuelled kiss became an embarrassment-fuelled speech_, _so get yours_, _girl_.

_Also_, _don_'_t call yourself _'_girl_', _not even in internal monologues_. _You can_'_t pull it off_.

The front desk of the Four Seasons on Union Street is manned by a short, scary-looking man in a dark suit, who seems almost offended by my approach. His name badge reads 'Robert Stark'.

"Brunette, right?" He accuses, before I can so much as open my mouth.

"Originally. I was wondering if I could –"

"You should be natural." His forehead puckers into a frow. "You modern women, dying your hair all colours of the rainbow. What's so wrong with the colour God gave you?"

"My sisters did it," I answer lamely. "All three of them, even my younger sisters. I did it to fit in."

That apparently offends him even more. "And what's so wrong with a little originality?" And he clicks his tongue at me.

I wish I were kidding.

"Mr Stark –" Good manners don't cost a penny, even when yo're dealing with a man whom you suspect is itching to bundle you into a corset and back into the nineteenth century. "I was wondering if you could tell me if a Jackson Avery had checked in?"

"I'm not at liberty to disclose that information."

"He won't mind, I'm his –"

"Except I'm not at liberty to disclose that information, Ms…?"

"Kepner, April Kepner."

Stark squints at me from behind the desk which invests him with all his unholy power. "Well, Ms Kepner, I suggest you contact Mr Avery if you're his whatever-you-are, and you recommend that he contacts the front desk to authorise your entrance."

I'm about to authorise _his_ entrance (and no, I have no idea whatsoever what I mean by that, I'm mad and mad people don't need to explain themselves), so rather than get myself barred from the Four Seasons forever, I pull out the big guns. I root around in my purse for the ID I never use, and then I lay it on the polished wood in front of Robert Stark. There really should be dramatic music playing for a reveal like that, but the best I've got is adding in a hushed whisper, "The hair is my cover. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like Mr Avery's room number, please."

"You're a pretty brunette," he offers unexpectedly, scribbling something on a card and palming it to me like it's a tip.

"Thank you."

I feel super dramatic as I sneak across the lobby, more for Stark's benefit than for actual sneaking purposes. Jackson, being an Avery (AKA a member of one of the richest families in the country) didn't bother to change Sloan's reservation, an eighth floor suite with a view over Elliott Bay. By the time I locate the right door and knock, my heart is pounding. Why is my heart pounding? Nothing's changed. We were kissing, and then there was Callie, and then he escaped and I temporarily moved into the belly of the beast.

I blame Arizona for this.

Because I may as well be holding a radio over my head.

"So Callie and Arizona know," I announce the second Jackson opens the door.

He looks tired. He hasn't even showered yet, which I can tell because he smells faintly of petrol. His face is creased and unguarded. "I got that."

"And nothing bad has happened."

"Not counting the petrol bomb."

"And you cooked me dinner."

"I would have, if not for the petrol bomb."

"Will you quit it with the gosh darn bomb?" I use my hands a lot when I'm nervous, and I'm currently super-duper nervous, so there's a lot of gesticulating. "What I meant was – what I _mean_ is – that rules are made to be broken, especially stupid rules I make about keeping secrets because I'm scared of people thinking I'm not good enough for you, or that we're only doing this because we're the only two left. That's crap. I'm awesome at my job, and who cares what Robert Stark says, my hair is fantastic, and you see me. We're together, and we could be great together, because you see all of me. We're together," I repeat, finally dropping my arms to my sides. "Now, are you going to let me in?"

The suite is beautiful, and all the soft furnishings are blue, and so is the water beyond the glass wall, but I don't see them. I see him, and I kiss him, and his expression smooths out like I'm a needle into a nerve, bringing relief from pain. I kiss him for the longest time, making up for time lost when Callie interrupted us, making up for time that could've been lost if the fire had damaged the important things, not just the expensive ones. He's scruffy and he tastes like scotch from the minibar, but neither of us care. There's a proper way to do this, with food and wine and flirting and lingerie (the way he planned tonight), but neither of us care. He was my buddy before he was my friend, and then something bad happened, so he was my friend before he was more, and then something bad happened, so he was everything.

I was being honest when I told Matthew that Jackson didn't persuade me, but now he does. When I pause, when I pant against him because my chest aches after the smoke and I'm not sure if he's good for my health, he rubs my back, fits his fingers into the spaces between my ribs, feels me breathe, persuades me. I don't have to say a word. He doesn't have to say a word. His eyes seem to be open every time I open mine, which means he's not only metaphorically seeing and knowing, but actually doing both. When I hesitate, he slows down, and the journey his mouth takes down my neck, over my shoulder is all the persuasion I need to go all the way down to the skin and all in all over again.

I'm seriously glad I didn't burn to death in my apartment after all.

"So, my mom's in town in a couple of weeks."

"And you want me to back up your endorsement of the Four Seasons as the premier place to stay in Seattle?"

"Because the Harper Avery foundation is having a gala."

"And you want me to back up your endorsement of the Four Seasons as the premier place to host a gala in Seattle?"

"April." His thumb trails over my lower lip, pulling it away from the upper, warming my entire face, my entire body. "My mom loves you – not that that's your cue to become her Facebook friend again, by the way – and there'll be at least three boring speeches, but the food's always good, and there's an open bar, so you could come." His gaze darts downward, and while I'm not denying there are some sights worth staring at down there, I'll bet they're the last (maybe second to last) things on his mind right now. "If you're free that night, and you don't mind black tie."

"Jackson Avery, are you asking me to the prom?"

"Prom with my mom?"

"Why do you have to be so literal?" I kick him gently, then hook my foot around his calf, stretching out my tired toes. "If I do accept your not-an-invitation, I'm not eating anything that featured in _The Little Mermaid_. That includes snails."

"Why would they serve snails?"

"How would I know what rich people serve at their rich people galas?"

"It's the Averys, not the Trumps."

"The similarities are endless. I mean, you and the Donald even have a similar amount of real hair…"

"Are you like room service? Can I send you back and get another naked girl free of charge?"

"Hey!"

But he rolls me onto my back, and I forget to be mad.

I forget to be much of anything.

An hour or so later, Jackson breaks the sleepy silence which has gradually filled the suite along with the moonlight. "I have to ask you something," he murmurs, into my shoulder, into my hair.

"I'm already going to the prom with you."

"Give it up." His arm tightens around me, and my hand tightens automatically around his. "Give up the case. Even Mark doesn't believe your apartment was hit by somebody looking for me. Somebody doesn't want you anywhere near George O'Malley."

"Isn't that all the more reason to keep investigating?"

"_I_ don't want you anywhere near George O'Malley."

"He didn't do it," I whisper, surprising myself. "The more testimonials I read, the more I review the evidence…he didn't do it, Jackson. The person who shot Alex did, and whoever that is was involved in George's trial somehow. He's in there, hiding behind the paperwork. All I need to do is –"

"April." His voice is hoarser, more hesitant, so I stay still and play dead and pray nothing else has to change. "How I feel about you isn't easy to talk about…but I can't be okay with you putting yourself in danger anymore, or about Charles and Reed still being such a big part of your life. Unless you let it go, they're going to be a big part of this too." His heart beats against my back, insistent. "Let them go, let this case go. Don't risk whatever future we have by living in the past."

"Okay." It only works because I'm facing away from him, staring out of the window at the Sound.

"Just okay?"

"Just okay."

And as I stare, I remember Robert Stark. I remember I'm a modern woman, and I colour my hair, and I wear contacts, and I don't say what I feel, and I don't give up that easily.

_I need the names of every informant who's testified in bomb making or cop shooting cases in the past five years, and I need you not to tell Meredith, because she'll tell Shepherd and Shepherd will tell Sloan, and I also need you not to tell your husband._

_Who is this? Do you know what time it is?  
><em>

_This is Kepner._

_'This is Kepner'? Oh, say more._

_**~#~**_

Stop me if you've heard this before, but many moons ago, I cut off my sister Libby's ponytail. The difference between that and this is Libby deserved what she got, but the outcome is the same: I never told her the whole truth about her scalping, and I'll never tell Jackson the whole truth about how George O'Malley was exonerated.

What he doesn't know can't hurt him.

_Rain_.

_Blood_.

_It_'_s raining blood_, _red pouring down from black_, _red turning pink_, _disappearing down a drain sunk into white_,_ soaked up by a cream-coloured couch that catches fire_. _I_'_m sitting pretty on the counter top_, _swinging my legs_, _watching it blaze through the doorway of the kitchen – but I_'_m not me_. _My feet are tiny_, _my features are sharp_. _I_'_m Reed_, _watching April_'_s couch burn through the doorway of_ _April_'_s kitchen_. _The hole in my forehead drips blood_, _blood drips from the ceiling_, _blood drips from the sky_. _The room is red_, _as red as my hair_, _as red as her hair_.

"Hey." I gasp awake to find Jackson shaking me, warm and alive, unconsciously offering undeniable evidence I'm not cold and dead like her. "Are you okay? You were thrashing around, you were –"

"I'm okay." But I still take care to make that my voice is drowsy, that my touch is clumsy when I pat his hand. "Go back to sleep."

What he doesn't know can't hurt him.


	13. Let's Kill Tonight

**13. Let's Kill Tonight**

'Speak the truth and shame the Devil' is another one of my mother's favourites. I've made my career out of doing just that, calling out liars and cheaters and schemers (and once upon a time, arresting them, if arresting them was under my jurisdiction as a police officer of the city of Seattle in the state of Washington), and I've always considered myself an honest person. Maybe that's because I've never had anything worth lying about before. I've never had anything worth hiding or stealing either, unless you count DVD players, petty cash and the watch I got for my twenty first birthday.

There was that one thing, that one thing I chose to give away.

In the absence of that one thing, I have this other thing.

Because this other thing is back on active duty tomorrow, I let it sleep. I let it sleep, and I don't refer to him by his name as I sneak out of the room, not even in my head, and that makes me feel cheap. By lying about and ignoring certain truths, I'm not only failing to shame the Devil – I'm shaming myself.

"Ms Kepner?"

There's a woman with a strong Southern accent and expertly applied eyeliner behind the desk this morning. Her lips curve as I stop and turn slowly on the spot to face her, most likely because I know she knows I'm doing the walk of shame, and she knows I know she knows.

"Ms Kepner, I have a key here for you." Charlotte King (General Manager) extends the card between the tips of her manicured fingers.

I take it. "How do you know my name?"

"It's my business to know your name," she says briskly. "Attractive young woman arrives in search of someone whose room number she doesn't know, had to make sure you weren't a hooker." I blush. She smiles. "Company policy, I'm sure you understand, no offence intended. Once I'd ascertained your profession, I familiarised myself with your picture in order to greet you personally, a courtesy I extend to all our guests, as well as the guests of our guests."

I have to wonder how she got into the hospitality business, since military logistics or big business would be more suited to that level of efficiency. "And you're allowed to say the word 'hooker'?"

Charlotte King purses her lips. "I crossed state lines to cover for the pansy ass cowering upstairs with a 'nervous breakdown'." She makes sceptical quotation marks in the air. "I left four children and a paediatrician with the survival skills of an infant back in California, and if you think they're still going to be clean and well-fed in a week's time, you've got another think coming – which is to say I'm unaware of company policy as it pertains to the term 'hooker', because no one _allows_ me to do anything."

"Uh…" I'm awed. I'm terrified. I'm impressed. "Thanks for the key."

"On behalf of the Four Seasons Hotel, I wish you a pleasant day, and hope to see you with us again soon." Her teeth are straight, white, beautiful.

Charlotte King (mother of four, general manager, golden hair, golden brown eyes, slim gold hoops in her ears) is an interesting way to start the day. I'm still shaking my head over her hooker comment as I follow the tiny pulsing dot on my phone to the nearest bakery, in the hope that picking up pastries will make up for running out on Arizona last night. I'm surrounded by no-nonsense women: Charlotte King, Cristina Yang, Callie Torres (is it something to do with having a name that begins with C?) and I'm starting to believe somebody somewhere is trying to tell me something. I'm aware it's not okay not to be honest, but for the sake of being a no-nonsense woman, is temporary dishonesty sort of acceptable?

Not to self: devote less time to existential crises, more to deciding between raspberry and apricot.

Seeing as how my self-control has left the building lately, I only buy four pastries. That's one each for my hosts, one for Sofia who most likely won't eat it (even though they frosted a smiley face on top, which is both delicious and adorable), and one to be left out on the kitchen island and picked at by the occupants of the upstairs apartment as they go about their days. I'm sticking to my mocha, purchased not from Callie's but from a coffee shop where they call 'April' instead of 'Kepner' and the cups have a green and white siren on the side.

Starbucks must be the real reason Tom Hanks was sleepless in Seattle.

Today isn't one of days Callie serves breakfast, so the bar is still locked up, and I have to climb the rickety fire escape to get to their apartment. Since it creaks loudly and looks ready to peel away from the wall and come crashing down at any moment, I'm justifiably nervous.

"Hey, it's April!"

Nothing.

"I'm on the fire escape!"

Still nothing.

"I brought pastries!" I thump the heavy fire door with my fist. "I…uh…I had sex last night!" And I hope to God there aren't any homeless people scavenging in the alleyway this early, firstly because people having no home to go to is so sad, and secondly because they have enough to deal with without having to hear about my sex life. "The details of which I'm not going to share with you, because that's not appropriate breakfast conversation!"

"Kepner!"

The door practically comes off its hinges. I'm suddenly nose-to-nose with Mark Sloan, who has the handle in one hand, a kiddie bowl of apple and cinnamon cereal in the other, and a face like thunder (very handsome thunder, even though he is a little older, but Lexie's a little younger, so who am I to judge?)

"Kepner," he growls, which is somehow more scary than his yelling.

"Sometimes I lie to get attention." And here comes the babbling. "Especially about sex. I have to go to confession, like, five times a week, even though I'm not Catholic. There is no way I had sex with anyone you may or may not know personally last night. No sir."

"Kepner!"

I lied. I prefer his growling.

"Would you like raspberry or apricot?"

_**~#~**_

By the time I escape the apartment (post-Mark Sloan yelling at me while I drank my coffee, Mark Sloan yelling at me through the door while I took a shower, Mark Sloan whisper-yelling at me when Sofia began to fuss), I feel ready for anything. Caffeine surges through my veins, and I get that it's wrong, but so does a thrill from being all Special Agent Kepner, licensed to kill (in my head, anyway). Cristina ended our conversation last night by informing me she'd reserved a conference room in our building for this morning, and what time I should be there. I wear a black shirt, a black skirt, and pantyhose.

She finds this hilarious for some reason.

"How you doing there, Jason Bourne?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say primly, even though I know exactly what she's talking about. "Do you have anything for me? Could you access any intel without tipping off Hunt?"

She scoffs. "Intel? Sure, I have _intel_, but I'm not going share until you tell me why I can't share it with either my husband or your child bride."

"I don't have a child bride!"

"Yeah, you do. Really pretty, saves cats from trees, that tween at Callie's with Hairball practically peed her pants every time you mentioned his name?" Cristina once defended this bouncer who glassed someone in a barroom brawl and didn't really deserve defending, and since Alex was the arresting officer, Jo testified, and Cristina – well, Cristina's like a shark. If she slows down and stops insulting people, she dies.

"Stephanie Edwards." Her drink order is a tall cup filled with a liquid so thick and viscous, it looks like tar. My double shot seems by comparison cowardly. "You can't tap Hunt because it would get back to Jackson, and I may or may not have promised Jackson I was going to give up this case, so in order to make sure he doesn't find out I didn't, you can't share any of this with the police department, not anything."

"Kepner, you make my head spin." She takes a big gulp of that nasty coffee. "You get five points for lying – you might want to note that down somewhere, I may have to dock points later on – but you need to stop using words like 'intel' and 'tap'. If you don't stop using words like intel and tap, I will kill you and my police chief husband will hide the body." Her angular eyes are like a shark's too, black and flat. "Are we clear?"

"Crystal."

"Okay then."

The room we're in is entirely made of glass, from the walls to the table, which has chrome legs but nothing but our elbows and cups on its surface. I expected manila files, newspaper clippings, maybe an old school Filofax.

"So, about the _information_."

I was wrong about her eyes, which aren't flat at all. In fact, they flash (I suspect Cristina Yang may enjoy acting like Jason Bourne more than she's letting on). "Right. So, you have a lunch date at Denny's, twelve for twelve thirty. Don't be late."

"_What_?"

"Don't be late."

"Cristina!"

She looks back at me blandly. "Yes?"

"About the information."

"Yes?"

"Could I, I don't know, actually have some?!"

Cristina heaves a sigh. "Fine. The person you're having lunch with wants to remain anonymous, so you'll be in back-to-back booths. I dug them up when I was going through records of gun violence towards cops and witnesses to said violence. They've witnessed two incidents, went to court the first time, got reamed out by the lawyer for the defence." She chugs more coffee. "Minor involvement in the second case, has refused to talk about it since, but we've met before and they agreed to do this so long as their identity remains secret and they're not called to testify when O'Malley's case is reopened." She says _when_, I notice, not _if_. "So be at Denny's, twelve for twelve thirty, and tell the hostess you're meeting your cousin."

"Is that the password?"

"No, she just thinks you're the black sheep daughter of a backwoods cult leader who ran away to the big city, and now the cult wants you back. Your people don't allow face-to-face contact," she adds.

"Seriously?" I've never eaten opossum stew. I don't want some twenty year old waitress with pin curls and a ruffled apron to think I've eaten opossum stew, even for a minute. "You couldn't just ask him or her to wear a really big hat?"

"I _could_," Cristina agrees. "But this way is more fun. For me."

Of course it is.

Denny's is a diner which, like most diners, pretends it's the fifties (minus segregation and sexism). I've been here before, once with friends, and once for a first date that didn't go anywhere after he revealed I'd have to compete with Mila Kunis for his attention (she was already the wallpaper on his phone, and besides, she's Mila Kunis, so I wasn't going to win that one). The décor is candy apple red and white, and they bring over a basket of biscuits and a little pot of whipped butter before you've even had a chance to open the menu. I arrive first, and I've just finished cutting a biscuit in half when the red leather cushion at my back presses into my back, indicating someone on the other side.

"Hello?" I ask, feeling stupid.

"You're Kepner?"

"Yes."

"I want your biscuits."

"Um…sure." I keep my gaze fixed dead ahead, although the temptation to turn around and shout 'aha!' or similar is making me itchy. I pick up the biscuits – minus the one on my plate – and pass them behind me. I feel her grip the basket, and I know it's a her because she's not very good at disguising her voice. "Thank you for meeting me."

"You can't tell anyone."

"What about Cristina, can I tell Cristina?"

"You can tell Cristina – oh, French toast, please, and I want Canadian bacon."

"What?"

"Waitress," she explains. A second later, a waitress in Granny Smith green deposits my order, bug-eyed. Because it's Denny's, even my strawberry soda is accompanied by a tiny strawberry shortcake. I should come here more often.

_Head in the game_, _April_!

"What should I call you?"

"Why do you need to call me anything?"

"It seems kind of rude not to call you by a name, even if it's not your name."

She's silent for a moment.

"You may call me Aphrodite."

I choke on my soda. Shortcake crumbs bubble down my chin, which the waitress hopefully believes is some obscure cult ritual, and not my inability to function in normal society. "I may call you what now?"

"You can either call me Aphrodite and hear what I have to say, or I'm leaving."

"Okay, okay! Fire away…Aphrodite."

I will not laugh. _I_ will _not_ laugh.

She clears her throat. "Your killer is not a have. Your killer is a have not."

"A have not?"

"Mmhmm, a have not. George O'Malley was a have. He was on track for his dream career and didn't have time to cook a pot roast, let alone murder two people in cold blood. Your killer, who has committed murder, who is still committing murder, is a have not."

"Not on track for his dream career?"

"No. Your killer is someone who had it and lost it, or who never made it to the top in the first place."

_Nurse Eli_, I think. _Did he want to be a surgeon_? _Did he want to be a doctor_? _How many male nurses actually want to be male nurses_? He's suspect number one, but Gary Clark was disillusioned too: pensioned off by the police department, forced to become a security guard at a hospital whose parking lot rookie police officers occasionally patrolled. Could he have pulled the trigger? Could the loss of a job and a lifestyle be reason enough to kill my friends? I think of Alex. Could demotion be reason enough to shoot at Alex and take him and all they could have been away from Jo, to make her like me?

And what about Jackson?

Could being a have not be reason enough to take him away? Could a lack of appreciation be reason enough to shoot at Jackson? To shatter the cereal bowl in my sink, to erase the texts on my phone, to smooth the sheets on my bed? Could such selfishness be behind the burnt out wreck of my living room?

Yes, I realise. Yes, it could.

But whose selfishness is responsible for so much pain and possible pain, I can't be certain.

"You know who the killer is," I accuse, and my voice is low and brittle. "You could tell the police. You could finish this right now, but you won't. You as good as stood aside so he could get a clear shot at that other officer."

"Hey, I came here as a favour to Cristina! I don't have to listen to this."

"Yes, you do! You're no actress. I recognise your voice. I remember it. I'll remember it when I find the killer, when he gets thrown in jail, when people ask why he wasn't put away years earlier, why he was allowed to kill again." The anger bubbling in my voice is as black, as sticky and as noxious as Cristina's morning coffee. "And when they start to blame the police, I'll tell them they should be blaming you. I remember you, Sydney Heron. I recognise your voice."

She gives a little shriek and scrambles up her booth, across the checkerboard floor, out of the diner. I still don't turn around. I don't need to.

I'll remember her.

_**~#~**_

"Hit it."

The bag sways slightly on its chain.

"Harder."

The bag swing properly, and my fist aches.

"Good job, Kepner. Again."

According to Owen Hunt, sometimes, talking things out isn't enough. Sometimes, you need to punch them out, so he's dragged me down to the staff gym, and several musclebound officers on their lunch breaks are giving me side-eye over the frustrated noises I make every time I hit the punch bag.

"Everyone is staring," I hiss. Of course, when he looks up, they're all focused on their own workouts. One guy is even whistling.

I hate that guy.

"No one is staring. Again."

My punches, weak as they are, raise clouds of dust from the old maroon bag. I can't explain to Hunt why I'm so mad, so I use Sloan as my excuse. "He kept shouting, 'this is the Hunger Games, Kepner! How is he going to win the Hunger Games with you distracting him?'" I take another swing, but lose my balance and end up hugging the punch bag instead. "Is Jackson up for promotion? Is there something I'm missing here?"

Oh, the irony.

Hunt shakes his head. "Sloan's grooming him for the big leagues, but Avery doesn't want it. He wants to work his way up on his own terms."

"And there's that chip on his shoulder."

"And there's the chip on yours. You're good together."

I kick the bag instead of punching it, so viciously that the chain squeals. "And _this_ is why I wanted to keep us secret, because I knew everyone would have an opinion! And no offence, Chief, but other than reading my file, you know very little about me." This kicking thing seems to work, so I do it again. "My name is April Kepner." _Kick_. "I'm twenty eight." _Kick_. "I was born on April twenty third in Columbus, Ohio." _Kick_. "My mom is a teacher, and my dad is a farmer. He grows corn." _Kick_. "Their names are Karen and Joe." _Kick_. _Kick_. _Kick_.

"April." Owen Hunt catches hold of my ankle, but his grip is respectfully loose. He puts my foot back on the floor, then takes a step closer and places his large hands on my shoulders. "What's going on with you?"

"Uh, my apartment was fire bombed, and my couch is burnt to a crisp." I feel the pressure of those hands, still gentle, and it brings tears to my eyes. "And I put all my savings into that apartment, into furnishing it, into making it my home. I could've died, or I could've been burned, or Jackson could've died, or Jackson could've been burned, and you would've told me if you had any leads, which means you don't, and I had to have lunch with someone who made me feel sick today, someone who that poem – 'then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out', you know that poem? – was written about, someone who let horrible things happen to good people. Alex got shot and survived, Charles and Reed got shot and died. This person who didn't speak out will live happily ever after in Chattanooga. It's not fair."

"Life's isn't fair, Kepner."

"I know that."

"That doesn't mean you stop fighting." Hunt drops his arms to his sides, but he doesn't step back. "People around the world are murdered for who they are, or who they love, or what they believe. People around the world are falsely imprisoned, or die alone, or live their lives according to the edicts of others. People in this city, in this country have crimes committed against them. Life by its nature isn't fair, so you have to fight for justice. We fight for the dead. We stand for the good people who horrible things happen to. A garden is just dirt until you plant flowers. And you can't just expect them to spring out of the ground in rows and take care of themselves. You need to change the things you can, and forget about the things you can't. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself crazy…or in your case, more crazy."

"I am _not_ crazy!" I say huffily, but he's right (not only about me being crazy). _God_, _grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change_, _courage to change the things I can_, _and wisdom to know the difference_. I may not be an alcoholic, but those are still good words to live by. I can be serene. I can be courageous. I can be wise.

I ball my fist.

"I am not crazy," I say again, and show the bag my right hook.

**_~#~_**

I've never been good at being an adult. I can pay bills on time and remember to lock my door (before my door was carted away as evidence of a crime), but I don't deal with life in an adult way. I have these long conversations with myself (as you may have noticed), but I can only talk about them to people who are, at most politely, interested in my problems, like Owen Hunt. More accurately, I can only _lie_ about my problems to people like Owen Hunt, which is why I've been avoiding Jackson's calls and hitting things. This pretending everything is awesome, what he doesn't know can't hurt him, business? Going swimmingly so far.

I'm scribing my meeting with the sickening Sydney Heron when he does one better than calling for the fourth time and actually appears in my office, a genie in sweatpants, popping out of a non-existent bottle.

"Uh…"

"I'm not a booty call."

"Excuse you?"

He crosses the room, slightly sweaty from a workout (which is not a problem _at all_), and props a hip on the corner of my desk. I have a special sort of thought involving me, him, and the desk, but I put it to one side because here in the real world, I'm going to have to lie to him about why I snuck out this morning, and that doesn't make me feel sexy in the least.

"I'm not a booty call," Jackson repeats. He says it with absolute composure, but his green eyes are sharp, apple peel green. "You can't just turn up at my door, tell me we're together, violate me, then sneak out before the sun comes up." His mouth twitches on the word 'violate', so it can't be _that_ bad, but those eyes are still accusing. "The only reason I didn't come down here sooner is because I figured you were freaking out about you, me, and Jesus, and probably ranting about it to someone who wasn't me, because you feel you can't talk to me about me now we're practically Facebook official. Am I right?"

Oooh, I need to change my Facebook status.

_Irrelevant_, _April_!

How did we get to this point, I wonder. Was it trauma? Was it beating on the same practice dummy during training? Was it the pizza nights, the movie nights? Was it that one time we played laser tag? How does one person come to know another person so well (because that's what I would totally be freaking out about if I had time to freak out about anythng except lying to him), and how does that person stand that other person when they know everything they know?

My head hurts.

"You can nod if talking's too hard."

I nod.

"Good. So, I'm extending the rule that when I sleep with you, I _sleep_ with you. When you sleep with me, you have to sleep with me too." He decides just like that, like I have no choice in the matter. Maybe that's fair. Maybe that's how we do fair.

I nod again.

"April?"

I look up at him. I lose myself for a second, in his smell, in the memory of him mapping my body with his hands.

Maybe I'm okay with this being how we do fair.

"Yes?"

"You can talk to me about me. You can even complain to me about me. I'm your friend." He grins. "Who else are you going to moan about your loser boyfriend to?"

God gives life, and God takes life away, and I hate anyone who tries to do His job for Him. I hate the cracks which run over the surface of my skin like I've been dropped, because someone took it on himself to play God, to shoot my friends, to end my career. I didn't think I had it in me to hate them any more, but I do. It's because of him, this guy on my desk in his grey sweatpants, this man who is asking me to be part of his life every which way, even though the death and disaster trail after me like toilet paper on the sole of my shoe. I'm wading a little deeper into this every day, and pretty soon, I'm going to be out of my depth.

But since I've never been good at being an adult, I don't tell him the truth. I lay my head against him, and I don't tell him the truth, which makes me as bad as Sydney Heron, and I wrap my arms around him. I hold on tight. I hold on so tight, my arms ache.

"Don't call my boyfriend a loser."

"Stay the night, and I won't."


	14. Hang On In There Baby

**14. Hang On In There Baby**

Under usual circumstances, the only way to send a care package to an incarcerated person is via an approved company. When that person is awaiting a retrial, or a new trial, or whatever the technical term for what's about to happen for George O'Malley is, the governor can decide. I have to submit a list of the items I'm planning to bring in advance, and the box is subjected to sniffer dogs and unpacked and repacked twice before I reach the nice desk clerk I remember from before, but these aren't usual circumstances, and I get to wrap it in bright paper, which makes her smile.

Her lipstick is coral today, and though she's still sturdy, she looks a little less sturdy than she did the last time I was here. I tell her so.

"Aren't you sweet." She beams, sorting the contents of the package by function – soap, shampoo, deodorant, hand sanitiser; the first three Harry Potters, this week's TV Guide; several pairs of white socks; the better part of my candy stash, sacrificed for the greater good. "Has all this been cleared?"

Officer Ross, whom I recognise by his perfect posture and poster boy handsomeness, nods, and she slides the orange tray on through the metal detector.

"It didn't seem like you thought there was anyone here worth you bringing packages to, Ms Kepner," Ross remarks, then immediately looks ashamed of himself for daring to question a lady. His mother raised him right, and some girl's going to count herself lucky to have met him one day.

Not me, though.

I'll count myself lucky if I don't have to put that soap somewhere unmentionable in order to get it to the interview room.

"Is Ms Altman here?"

He shakes his head. "The warden is teaching a class today, so I'll be overseeing your interview with the prisoner. I'm sure she'd be here if she could."

"Don't worry about it. It'll be nice to have a friendly face in there with me."

The skin across his cheekbones, which are high and proud, darkens, and I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm hitting on him. I'm pretty sure the clerk thinks so too, as she purses her pink-orange lips in a silent 'oooh' and beams across the desk at us like a benevolent Buddha. "Let me just pack this all up for you, honey."

Officer Ross chivalrously carries my care package through the soulless cinderblock hallways, but is too embarrassed by my come-hithering (even though I've never come-hithered in my life; I'm not even sure I know _how_ to come-hither) to speak. I fiddle with my visitor's badge, all the better not to floor him with my wit and charm. My heels ring on the concrete, and all I can see is grey, and all I can focus on is the fact that I have condoms in my purse, which I had to leave behind me at the desk. What if Ms whatever-her-name-is (I _have_ to learn her name, it's rude not to at this point) decides to compare our lipstick choices and finds I have condoms in there? And they're not plain old vanilla condoms, no sir.

I, April Kepner, am the proud owner of a variety pack.

(Admittedly, I sweated through my shirt on my way up to the counter, convinced the cashier was going to tell on me to my mother, but he seemed engrossed by Men's Health, and I'm pretty it wasn't the workout plans he was checking out. I can relate. I buy condoms now. I understand the call of the wild).

My Ross-in-shining-armour nearly has an aneurysm punching in the door code while balancing a box in his arms, but good manners win out, and he ushers me inside once the light turns green and he's ensured George isn't waiting three feet away from the door with shank, which he isn't. He's sitting down already, his soft face made softer by fatigue.

"Ms Kepner," he says formally, but he's smiling.

"Doctor O'Malley." That's the name he'll get back if Grey, Shepherd, Yang and I do our jobs right, and using it is a courtesy I definitely owe him. "I brought you some things, some toiletries, some clothes…I hope you don't mind."

The package, which has a sticker on top confirming it's been cleared, is placed carefully on the table between us. I glance up to thank Officer Ross, but he's back with his back to the wall again, spine straight, eyes front.

No more come-hithering for him.

"May I…"

"Of course."

George worms one finger inside the top flap and starts work on his gift. He lines the contents up in rows, methodical, precise, but when he gets to the gummy bears, he closes his eyes and stays that way for a long time. His fingers clench around the brightly coloured packet. A lump forms in my throat.

"George –"

"You have no idea." His voice is choked. "No idea."

I don't, so I give him those a minute, and then another, and when he opens his eyes again, they're wet. I have no idea what it's like to live inside these walls, to have access to so little basic kindness that candy makes you cry. My life may not have exactly been sunshine and rainbows over the past few years, but my family, my friends, my favourite Chinese takeout place have never been more than a phone call or a car ride away. It doesn't make me feel good to be so lucky. It makes me feel about as awful as a person can feel.

"I'm sorry about the soap. It's the brand I use, I didn't even think –"

"Hey, I love the soap. I'm all about the soap." He waggles the bar at me. "And I love the socks, do you know how chilly regulation socks can get? And as for the candy, well…I'm really grateful, April. For the socks. For the soap. For everything you've done."

For everything I'm still doing, against my better judgement.

I take a breath. "I mean it, though. I'm so sorry, George." It comes out in a rush, like a rush of water breaking down a dam. There's no dam left between me and him, and I don't hate it because there's nothing left to hate. "I'm so sorry for everything. I'm sorry for everything I've done to make you feel like a criminal, for everything I've said to hurt you. It goes against everything I am to have treated you that way, and I'm sorry."

And then I feel it: a warm touch at the base of my spine, and a – not quite a voice exactly, but a sense – a sense of something in my head, tickling my brain.

_Do not judge_,_ and you will not be judged_._ Do not condemn_,_ and you will not be condemned_._ Forgive_,_ and you will be forgiven_.

And just like that, Jesus is back on board.

"I hope you like gummy bears."

Ross sounds like he's choking on something when George reaches for my hand, but he's no Teddy Altman, and this time around, I let it happen. I squeeze. He squeezes. I smile. He smiles.

"We're going to get you out of here," I tell him. God is not down with unlawful imprisonment, and neither am I, and I'm batting for His team. I'm letting Him take the wheel. I'm using several clichés in my head that I would never repeat out loud, because I'm full of hope, and hope comes from Him, and so does love, and I'm overflowing with that recently, more like a burst pipe or a faulty fountain than a P.I. George O'Malley is a guy who should be loved by someone (and he will, since he'll be a nice, steady doctor with a tragic back story someday soon).

"We're going to get you out of here," I tell him again, and I'm glad I told a lie and stuck with this case, with him, because it's what Jesus would freaking do.

_**~#~**_

Two hours and a meatball sub later (spiritual awakenings are exhausting, and I needed the calories), I'm being cruised by a police cruiser. I've moved from the oh-my-God-it's-a-serial-killer-in-disguise stage to the oh-my-God-this-is-seriously-cheesy-but-cute stage, and I've slowed down, but I'm refusing to stop.

"Don't you have evildoers to catch?"

"I'm not Batman."

"Aren't you wasting taxpayer's gas money?"

"Probably."

"Are you're aware this is creepy?"

"April."

"Mmmm?"

"Get in the car."

My stomach does little flips when I do glance in his direction, because his uniform is all crisp, and I'm riding a high made from forgiveness and processed meat products, and the angle of the sun as it tries (and fails) to break through the cloud cover highlights the freckles on his nose, and the way his lashes are thicker at the corners, and I know eyelashes aren't supposed to be what attracts you to a man, but honestly, I'm running out of things _not_ to be attracted to.

Did I mention the uniform?

"Kerb crawling is an offence," I announce sanctimoniously as I slide into the passenger seat, Stephanie's seat.

"Only if I'm soliciting a prostitute for sexual activity," Jackson counters, and parks up next to a hardware store with crooked blinds and a closed sign (hanging crookedly) on the door. He turns his head, and I see my friend, the sharp slice of his smirk. "So unless you've had a career change you haven't –"

Except he isn't just my friend. The way I lean towards him proves it, the way I cup his jaw between my hands, the way I move my lips against his in patterns that have become familiar but which still increase the tempo of my heart, jumping from _beat_, _beat_, _beat_ to _beat beat beat beat beat_. The way he responds to me, no pause, no surprise, no rejection. The way he frees my hair from its band and tugs lightly on the ends, a reminder of all those times he pulled my ponytail. The way we tussle, more me, more him, more me again. I'm a firm believer in science, in the biology and chemistry of how and why we get physical, but I can't help but believe in magic too, because this? This is magic.

"My mom called."

His breath is warm against my jaw. It takes a moment or two for me to even remember he has a mother.

"What did she say?"

"She wanted to know if I was bringing a plus one to the gala."

"So what did you say?"

"I told her I was." He's moving gradually down my neck, lifting the collar of my shirt, covering me in goosebumps. _I will not have sex in a cop car_. _I will not have sex in a cop car_.

"I will not have sex in a cop car," I blurt out. "And don't go all, 'who said anything about sex?' because every time you do that, we end up having sex after I've explained how the conversation between your body and my body would've inevitably led to sex."

So Jackson pulls back, grinning, tucks a strand of newly loosened hair behind my ear. "Yeah, you probably shouldn't mention that to my mother."

"You'll be lucky if I can get a word out around your mother. She's so…"

How can I describe Catherine Avery? Gorgeous, for one. Strong-willed, enough to raise a child single-handedly while running a successful charitable foundation. Opinionated. Overpowering? Overpowering pretty much sums her up, as this is a woman who wears Chanel perfume, so everything from her scent to her views on social policy is overwhelming. I've met Jackson's mother before, but I've never really _met_ Jackson's mother before.

I've never been a plus one to anything either.

"Your mother is terrifying," I decide. "Awe-inspiring."

"She's just my mom."

"Catherine Avery is not a 'mom'. My _mom_ bakes enough cobbler to feed the entire neighbourhood, while your _mother_ has met the president, and the First Lady, and I've actually seen FLOTUS wearing that scarf your mother gave her, which, like, never happens. They've never even used the elephant he got for his inauguration." If you're wondering whether cruisers have makeup mirrors, they do. I flip it down, start work on the mess he's made of my hair. "She sent me a birthday card that sang 'Sexual Healing' last year. When she finds out that you and I…that me and you…"

"Stop," Jackson orders, and wipes smeared lip gloss firmly off my mouth with his thumb. "You'll be fine, and she'll be…inappropriate, but fine. I'm happy, she's happy."

"But you never even introduced her to Lexie, and the two of you were together for – forever! You were together practically forever!"

"Because I wasn't –" He cuts himself off, finishes up with my Raspberry Razzle Dazzle. His eyes go sharp and somehow soft at the same time when I bite down gently on his fingertip. "What was that about not having sex in a cop car?"

I sigh. "You're very handsome, and it's very annoying."

"I get that a lot."

"_You_'_re_ very annoying."

"Which is why it's lucky I'm very handsome, else you wouldn't be dating me."

"That is _a_ reason." Whether accidental or on purpose, his top button never seems to be done up. I do it for him, holding his gaze, feeling his throat contract as he swallows. "But that's not _the_ reason."

But that reason is still my secret to keep, until the gala, anyway. I'll be brave, in my pretty green dress, with my hair up, once I've met Jackson's mother as her son's plus one. I'll wait for abreak in the speeches, and then I'll make my speech, say it like it's the most normal thing in the world. Like, you know, it's not the three most important words in the English language, the three words which make or break relationships every day. Like, you know, I'm not scared to death he won't say it back, that he doesn't feel it, that this is great for him but like Diet Coke, healthy and easy and without the commitment to rotting your teeth and changing your life that comes with regular soda. My teeth have been rotting away (so to speak) for a while now, and he deserves to know, but when and only when I'm wearing a pretty green dress and my hair is up.

I'll tell him, but when and only when I can be sure there are fancy bathrooms I can hide in and he'll be too restrained by good manners and crowds of possible donors to chase after me.

When we reach the street with the building where I work, where Meredith and Cristina and Derek Shepherd work, I lean back in through the window once I'm standing on the sidewalk. "I still owe you dinner for the night your marinara went up in smoke."

"Yeah, you do."

He grins, and tries to decapitate me by winding up the window before I'm ready.

Okay, his manners aren't _that_ good.

_**~#~**_

_Finished ur pity food. U want dishes back?_

_No, keep them. They'll be a nice new home for your mould collection._

_LOL. Did u blow Avery over lunch?_

_NO! WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY THAT?_

_Hes practically skipping. Ur making Edwards miserable._

_I'm sorry to hear that._

_R not._

_Was there something you wanted, or are you trying to bad grammar me to death?_

_U hav time later?_

_For?_

_Drinks eight Callies. Dont bring ur wife._

_WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP CALLING HIM THAT?_

Alex drinks beer, tap or bottle. I take a seat on the stool beside his and steal the glass from his hand, managing a sip before he snatches it back and growls, "Get your own."

"How's married life treating you?"

He snorts. "Me and Wilson, we're great, but we're not married. Not like some people."

Brooks (_Heather_, I remind myself, _her name is Heather_), slides a beer down the bar to me and winks. She smells like bubble gum. Her t-shirt is the same colour. "Some people," I say carefully. "Whom you claim were practically skipping this afternoon?"

"Don't act like you're not _dying_ to hear every tiny detail of every way Avery showed us he's gone on you." Alex gives me a can't-eff-an-effer look, then begins to tick them off on his fingers. "First, he pranced in with this big shit-eating grin on his face; second, when Edwards asked where he went for lunch, he said he skipped because he was seeing 'someone', but wasn't hungry anyhow." He waggles his eyebrows at me. "Third, he went on about how great it is about me and Jo, except it was obvious he wasn't talking about me and Jo, because he used the word 'compatible', and we yell at each other at least an hour a day." He smirks. "It's hot when she yells, whatever. That enough unnecessary information for you?

"Yep."

"Good, because you're not going to like the next part." He takes a pull of beer, then stares into his glass like he's trying to see the future in the liquid's surface. When he raises his head, my stomach goes in the opposite direction and takes the elevator down to my shoes.

"You know…but how? How do you know?"

"Yang." To Alex's credit, he's as uncomfortable with our sharing a secret as I am. "She called me for details of the murders Heron witnessed, and I owed her a favour." He rubs the back of his neck. "Apes, I'm not going to tell anyone, but I think you should. I also know you promised Avery you'd quit the case, and you haven't. What's going to happen when he finds out?"

"He's not going to find out!"

"I found out." That's reasonable, I guess. "And with your friends? Yang works with Grey. Grey's sister is with Sloan. Sloan loves Avery. That's one way it could come out. You're living with Torres. Torres has a baby with Sloan. Sloan loves Avery. There's another way. You do this zen crap with Hunt, who's married to Yang, and all one of you has to do is let something slip, and he could say something to Sloan or Avery. And then what?" He actually picks up one of my hands and holds it, startling me, startling us both. Alex and I don't do meaningful conversations, and we definitely don't do physical contact (except for that one time, for that one oceangoing disaster). "One, how's he going to react when he finds out you lied, and two, how's he going to react when he finds out you lied from somebody else?"

I swallow. "But you won't tell him?"

"No, I won't tell him."

"Then what he doesn't know can't hurt him." Which is quickly becoming my mantra, my philosophy, my everything. "I'm going to tell him, Alex, I'm going to tell him everything, but after. When it's done. When the shooter is behind bars, when my apartment's not a crime scene, when _I_'_m_ done."

"He thinks you're already done. He thinks you're over it."

"Alex." His eyes are brown like coffee, bitter, like chocolate, sweet. I remember what it was like to want him, and how that want feels stupid compared to the way I want Jackson. "Drop it."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay." He transfers his grip from my hand to his glass. "I'm an ass to you, and you still brought me food when I was in the hospital. You're a good person."

"Jackson saved you from being shot in the chest."

"Which is why if you don't 'fess up soon, I will." Alex finishes up his drink and shrugs. "But you will. See, you and Avery get the same look on your face, which means you're serious – like you could ever be anything but serious with a guy you're screwing, no offence – so you get him, and how much he trusts you – not to take care of yourself, you're kind of a basket case, but how much he trusts you to be honest and good to him and not to break his face or his heart – and you get that lying to him is going to blow a hole in you two so wide, you'll never be able to fill it in." He shrugs again. "But hey, it's none of my business. I'm just the guy whose life your boyfriend saved."

_I_'_m just the guy whose life your boyfriend saved_.

_If you don_'_t__ fess up soon_, _I will_.

My mouth is dry, tacky. "How's your shoulder?"

"Barely even hurts anymore."

"That's good."

"And you really are making Edwards miserable." He smirks at Heather Brooks, who points two fingers at him and mouths '_bang_' before swirling off to change a barrel or astral project or something. "As far as she's concerned, she got dumped. She doesn't get the only reason Avery asked her for drinks in the first place was because he was all 'will no one rid me of this turbulent priest' over you."

"Alex?" I cock my head on one side. "Did you just reference the murder of Thomas Becket, twelfth century English martyr?"

"I saw a movie about it when I was sick," he informs me. "I had soup and crackers, and it wasn't a bad movie either."

No, Alex, the Burton-O'Toole production _Becket_ is anything but bad, except my opinion is anything but impartial when Richard Burton is at the table, because my mom misguidedly let me watch Elizabeth Taylor movies when I was too young to appreciate them, so as far back as I can remember, I've had a thing for dead actors, especially dead actors with voices like Richard Burton's.

We'd never work, though, me and dead Richard Burton. Dead Elizabeth Taylor would eat me alive.

April Kepner is a sucker for the past, and sometimes, April Kepner uses it to avoid the present (and sometimes, she uses both alcohol and the third person to avoid both).

"_I think you should tell her_."

_Our tiny apartment is full of people_,_ noises_ _(pounding bass_,_ loud voices_,_ someone playing that screeching sound on their phone which supposedly only dogs can hear but which actually_,_ everyone can hear)_, _smells_. _I made lasagne_,_ but Reed bought Cheetos_, _and really_, _who eats lasagne at a party_?

_Besides me_, _I mean_.

__Besides me and Charles_, _I mean_._

"_I think you should mind your own business_."

"_You don_'_t have to eat that_, _it_'_s okay_."

"_Are you kidding_?" _His eyes are bulging a little_, _his mouth is so full_. "_It_'_s food_!_ At a party_!"

"_Yeah_, _but it_'_s a _party." _I flip over a square with my fork_. _It makes a squishy sound as it hits the plate_. "_You_'_re not supposed to sit in a corner and eat lasagne at your own party_. _You_'_re supposed to stand in the middle and drink beer and mingle_." _Reed told me to mingle_. _She said it_'_d be lame if I didn_'_t_.

"_What are you losers doing_?" _She flops down on the bean bag chair between us_, _nods at Charles_. "Percy." _Nods at me_. "_Trigger_."

"_Don_'_t call me that_."

"_Why_? _Because Avery_'_s panties are in a twist about it_?" _He actually _is_ standing in the middle of the room_, _in the middle of a group of girls_,_ our downstairs neighbours_. _Reed_'_s laughter draws his gaze_, _but it switches to me as soon as he realises I_'_m there_.

_It_'_s hot_.

_I feel scorched_.

_Charles whistles through his teeth_. "_Make that his panties_ and_ his bra_."

"_Most guys like a girl on top_," _Reed remarks_, _and Charles chokes and catapults his mouthful of lasagne straight into her lap_.

"_Ewww_! _What the hell_, _Percy_?!"

"_Make that I _don't_ think you should tell her_."

"_Shut up_, _Trigger_!"

"_Don_'_t call me Trigger_!"

Being with Alex isn't the same as being with my friends, but it helps (and all the empty glasses on the bar help too).

"You love Jo." I drive a peanut shell around my own elbow, leaving a tiny trail of peanut shell dust. It's been a good day. Jesus and I are connecting again, Arizona's home early and is clearing tables with Sofia on her hip, Lexie waved at us before tucking herself into a corner with a couple of friends…it's been a good day, and drinking tonight will make tomorrow sour.

"Yeah. You love Jackson."

"Yeah."

And that is why I'm drinking, even though it'll make tomorrow sour.

"Dude."

"I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I'm not reasonable, I'm not rational, I'm not even an adult about it. I wouldn't let her say it –" I flap my arm at Arizona, who's now swaying in time to the music, dancing with her daughter. "And God knows _I_ can't say it! And it's screwing with my work, and it's screwing with my head, and…oh, boy." I put my head down on my folded arms, my peanut shell race car abandoned. "It's meant to be all sunshine and roses and sex with your legs in the air, but it's not. I have to think about someone else now, about this whole other adult person. I can't just live my life for me and hope he fits in with it…except that's kind of sort of what I'm doing right now with the lying, and it's super-duper awful, and I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."

"Jo can get her legs over her head," Alex adds helpfully.

"I wish I didn't know that."

"You wish you could get your legs over your head."

Ugh, he's so smug (and also so accurate – it can't be that hard, can it?)

"And you don't hate it." Two hours and multiple rounds later, it's not surprising his comforting words are slightly slurred and his comforting pat is slightly slappy. "If you hated it, lying wouldn't bother you. What you hate is not being able to play the innocent, so you act like you're in this against you're will, and you're so not." Alex tries for a conspiratorial nudge and ends up almost pitching me off my stool and onto the floor.

He looks me in the eye. His are liquor-coloured and liquour cloudy.

"And you know who the shooter is."

"And I know who the shooter is."


	15. Dance, Dance

**15. Dance, Dance**

None of us got much sleep last night. Sofia has a cold and was screaming until four, and it took the combined efforts of her moms, her dad (whom they called at midnight when she showed no signs of stopping), and me to quiet her down. The scene the morning after is not even a little sublime, just a lot of ridiculous: Callie's still propped in the doorway, her mouth slightly open, her eyes mostly shut; Arizona's on the floor, curled up like a foetus whose mascara has glued her eyelids shut; Mark Sloan and I are bed buddies. I have no idea how it happened, but it started with him on one end of the couch and me on the other, and then I think we slowly keeled over, and I open my gritty eyes to find our head resting on the same cushion.

"Kepner!" He barks, someone sensing I'm awake before I'm even sure I am.

"Hi," I croak. I need water. Coffee. Deodorant. A defibrillator.

"You did good last night. You're good with my kid."

"Uh…thank you?"

"You never give up, do you?" His head brushes against mine, too intimate for someone I don't really know on a personal level, but perhaps that's the right level of intimacy for someone whom I spent the night with (platonically, obviously, along with two other women and a preschooler – does that make it sound worse?) "I thought you were going to throw in the towel after the hits of the eighties at three, but you were surprisingly competent for someone who claims to have never played the spoons before."

By the way, I play the spoons now.

"You're a very surprising woman," Sloan continues. His voice is deep, gravelly, sexy from sleep, and it has no effect on me whatsoever.

Go me.

"Is this you giving me your blessing to date with Jackson?" I have to have a yawn break before the punchline, but snark is better when it's been matured. "Or are there some more police officers you want me to sleep with for the good of their blood pressure?"

He snorts. "Neither. I told you to have sex with Avery, not to get him all hopped up on you. He used to have this magic, he used to be able to make lines and nondisclosure agreements and bitchy PAs disappear. One flash of those eyes, that smile, and they'd be putty in his hands – _my_ hands, Kepner. Bitchy PAs can scent 'in a relationship' like a shark scenting blood, and so can baristas."

"So your problem with us being together is you don't get your coffee with a side of sexism anymore? That must be a terrible loss."

"You're not sweet," he tells me grumpily. "You act like you're sweet with your raspberry or apricot and your come-to-Jesus act, when actually, you're diabolical."

"I'm not diabolical, I'm tired!"

"I like diabolical."

"Oh."

His hand appears over my head, hovering like a sleep-deprived hallucinatory bird.

"Up top, Kepner."

I slap his palm, and the effort sends mine crashing back to the couch cushion. This is possibly the weirdest morning after I've ever experienced, and that's from someone who was playing the spoons and singing about needing a hero not three hours ago.

"I had a couch once," I say wistfully. "The pillows had birds stencilled on them."

"We're going to find the bastard who did your place," Mark replies (I'm going to call him Mark now, if only in my head; the various bodily fluids produced by his daughter and mopped up by yours truly last night have stuck us together emotionally if not physically).

That may be the nicest thing he's ever said to me.

_**~#~**_

"Let me get this straight." Meredith smooths the air like she's actually straightening out the facts, lining them up in order to knock them down. "You believe you know the shooter's identity, and you're not going to tell me?" Her eyebrows form a straight line across her forehead. "And you still want my permission, as George's attorney, to leak his – or her – identity to Miranda Bailey, so she can leak it all over again in an article which will draw him – or her – out and hopefully elicit a confession?"

"That's about the sum of it," I say cheerily, and slide the Tupperware of oatmeal and raisin cookies I brought onto her desk.

"Kepner, you're insane."

"Am I, though?"

"Yes. Yes, you are." She steeples her fingers. "One, if you think you know the identity of a murderer, it's your duty to report that information to the police. Two, you haven't offered me any evidence to back up your supposition or, as a matter of fact, the supposition itself. Shall I give you my personal or my professional opinion on all of the above?"

"Both?"

Meredith sighs (I'd probably sigh too if I were her, faced with me and my cookies). "Professionally, it's incredibly dangerous, verging on illegal, to print the name of someone who may or may not be guilty of something. Bailey will have to protect her source, you, at the cost of her career, a large fine and possible jail time. Personally…" She glances away from me, out of the window, which is sunk deep enough into the wall of the building to protect it from the driving rain outside. "If leaking the name to Bailey will lead to a conviction that clears George, then for God's sake, leak the name to Bailey. Do it now. Do it yesterday. Do it, April."

"I…" I inhale green, exhale red. It's a self-help book thing. "Okay then."

"You thought I was going to say no, didn't you?"

"No."

"You thought I was going to let you off the hook, tell you I'd handle it, and then you could go back to Pretty Boy with a clear conscience." Her smile is crooked. "Sorry, but Grey, Shepherd and Yang count as an interested party. I can't do anything which can be traced back to my client."

"Oh."

"Yep." She pops the 'P', leans back in her chair and studies me from beneath her lashes. "Since you don't have a contract with this office, you can do whatever the hell you want, you know, which includes walking away from the case."

"I'm not going anywhere." Not when I'm so close to getting everything I want, everything George wants. "You need me."

"Yes, we do."

"So I'm not going anywhere."

Rose has a slight curve to her belly I haven't noticed before today, most likely because it tents the navy blue fabric of her dress approximately one inch. I raise my eyebrows meaningfully at her as I pass her desk, and she smiles.

"Four months today."

"Congratulations!" I beam, even though my insides are slowly dissolving in a vat of panic acid. Why did I give my cookies to Meredith (my oatmeal and raisin cookies, not my – never mind)? Why didn't I take note of Rose's glow before this, and think, _hey_, _Rose looks like a gorgeous light bulb all of a sudden_ – _not that_'_s she_'_s not always gorgeous_ – _maybe_ _I should buy some bootees to put in my gift drawer in case she has something in _her_ gift drawer _– _meaning uterus, not anything else in that region_.

"I'll email you about the shower date," she promises. I thank her, pretending not to be having a minor meltdown about picking out an appropriate card for my building buddy's receptionist's baby shower, and back away slowly.

You can really tell I didn't get much sleep last night, can't you?

"You can really tell I didn't get much sleep last night, can't you?" I ask Jackson despondently, dipping a chicken finger into honey mustard and examining rather than eating it. He, the pragmatist to my optimist, takes it from me and scarfs it down.

"Do you want an honest answer or a polite one?"

"Honest."

"I can really tell you didn't get much sleep last night." The smack I land on his arm makes him smirk (the smack that has no sting in its tail), and he presents me with a new chicken finger by way of an apology.

Considering how it's practically the scene of a crime, I'm surprised to see Captain Sloan (Mark) back at Callie's so soon. I'm even more surprised he would bring Jackson by for lunch, order him into the seat next to mine and maintain a safe distance, alternatively wolfing down mozzarella dippers and cease-and-desisting the young co-ed clearly craving his attention.

"For the wrong reason," Jackson amends, chewing pensively. "You didn't get much sleep last night _for the wrong reason_."

"Right, so, I'm pretty sure I don't have to remind you your boss is here, so any mention of sexual shenanigans should be kept to a minimum."

Did I seriously just use the phrase 'sexual shenanigans'?

"One," he begins, gesturing with a chicken finger. "Sexual shenanigans? And two, as if Sloan would be anything other than pleased to hear I'm getting some."

"You must have Edwards stashed in a closet somewhere, because you're not getting any from me."

Jackson places his hands on my knees. Jackson turns me ninety degrees. Jackson, knowing where my pressure points are, looks firmly into my eyes and brooks no argument, no blinking, no looking away. The best I can do is stare him down, feeling my knees start to jiggle slightly beneath his palms, feeling the tips of my fingers go numb and my brain follow suit. What is it about him, about this one guy of all the guys in the world? He's my friend, who fries my circuits with a look, with his skin on my skin in the middle of a crowded bar on a weekday. At some unspecified point in the future, I'm going to go ahead and spontaneously combust from all the sweet and the sizzle, from the friendly and not-so-friendly back-and-forth between us.

The worst is, he can see it all happening. He can read my face like a map.

"I don't have Edwards stashed in a closet somewhere."

"Uh-huh."

"I don't have any other girl stashed anywhere."

"Mmhmm."

"It's all about you," he says simply, and leans forward. I lean forward likewise, but instead of kissing me, he pauses a few microns away from my mouth. His breath is warm, a little spicy. He is a little hard to resist. "Come by tonight. I'm teaching a refresher class on the sleep with me after you _sleep_ with me rule."

"I don't need a refresher."

"Don't you?"

Well, I tried. I did my best to make it about friendship, and then I did my best to make it about sex, and then I did my best to make it not about the thing I'm not going to say yet, but when his hands slide up and over my thighs and up and over my body and up and over my neck, gauging my response from the beat of my heart, I know I've failed. He is the first and only person I will ever show my 'Mint to Be' favours to, and yes, I'm aware Mint to Be favours are cringey and buying them before you've even been proposed to is super-duper _Fatal Attraction_-level desperate, but I like to think of it as romantic.

Or cringey and romantic.

Or cringey _but_ romantic?

I bite my lip. "This is not me betraying feminism by perpetuating the stereotype that women are slaves to their attraction to men."

"Okay…"

"Because you're not men – I mean, you are, but you're one particular man – and I'm not perpetuating the – except I kind of am, aren't I? – and that said, I –"

"April!" Jackson rolls his eyes and kisses the end of my nose, amused and, like always, exasperated. I don't remember anyone ever kissing me there before, in the safe zone above and between lips and cheeks. "Use your words. "

I laugh and push him away. "You. Me. Sex and movie night. Satisfied?"

"No, but I will be after sex and movie night."

"Shut up."

"Avery!" Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Sloan wishes to leave the building. "Recess is over. We have suspects to interview and public defenders to send to the wrong floor. Move!" He winks at me, and I realise this is my reward for staying up all night with his daughter. He has a core of kindness, a soft caramel centre that I've never encountered before. I suppose that's what separates me and Lexie, although once upon a time, our taste in men was very similar…

Arizona enters as Mark and his protégé depart, water droplets glimmering like diamonds in her hair.

"Hi!" I bounce up to greet her. "I didn't know you were home for lunch. Would you like me to get you something, or –"

She interrupts me, a very un-Arizona-like act. "Was that Jackson I just saw?"

"Yeah, he –"

"Is he heading back to the precinct?"

"Yes, Sloan says he has to be 'hot cop', so –"

"Great."

My heart goes out to her, since the flush in her cheeks tells me everything: that she's hurting, that something's happened to or is about to happen to someone in her care. Ive learnt it's better not to comment or try to comfort her, although I do step forward to help her off with her coat. She thanks me distractedly, then disappears upstairs without meeting my gaze once. I hope she talks to Callie about it, at least. I hope she talks to someone.

I stand holding Arizona's wet windcheater with the door in front of me and a rapidly cooling basket of chicken fingers behind me, and I wonder how I have any right to be happy, or to have sex and movie night, or even to wake up tomorrow. _Thank you_, _God_, I murmur mentally. _Thank you for giving me all my limbs and no major genetic conditions and for not starving me of oxygen or striking me down with the ebola virus_._ Thank you __for sex and movie night_,_ and for not letting me eat any of those chicken fingers_, _because I don_'_t have time to get a run in before tonight_, _and I_'_m pretty sure Jackson_'_s going to expect me to be naked for the sex portion of the evening_, _and I do _not_ want him to see me with a poultry pooch_. _Amen_.

_**~#~**_

I decided to meet Miranda Bailey in neutral territory, not her office, my office, or anywhere with fried chicken (my willpower is just about used up). I suggest the park normally reserved for my therapy with Owen Hunt, who is currently vacationing in Boise, Idaho, of all places. Why he'd bother going all the way to Idaho for hiking and biking, both of which Seattle is famous for, escapes me (as does why he'd go on vacation without his wife, but Cristina seems about as likely to hike and bike as she does to bake apple pie, so perhaps that's why). Anyway, I sub Bailey in for Hunt, and we both have to put up our umbrellas before we're even halfway round.

"You'd better have a good reason for dragging me out here on leg day," is her opener.

"Leg day?" I don't have a leg day. _Why don_'_t I have a leg day_? "Like, at the gym?"

"Yes, Kepner." She may be a foot shorter than I am, but Bailey still has the power to pin me in place with her stare. "Leg day refers to the day when I devote hours to improving the musculature in my legs, including but not restricted to lifts, squats, and free weight use." After half a minute of me quaking in my boots (Bailey is super scary when I'm not sure if she's being sardonic), she relents. "Leg day is the day my husband gets home early, rubs a leg of lamb with aromatic spices, and puts it in the oven. It is also the day that _I_ get home early, reward my husband for rubbing a leg of lamb with aromatic spices and putting it in the oven, prepare a potato casserole and sit down with my family for dinner at six thirty _on the dot_."

"Then…I'm sorry for disturbing you on leg day?"

"Your apology is accepted."

We walk on. The moisture in the air tints everything, turning the leaves on the trees blue rather than green.

"Kepner?" Bailey prompts me. "Your good reason?"

"Oh, right!" I switch umbrella hands and clear my throat. "George O'Malley pleaded innocent to the murders of Reed Adamson and Charles Percy, and can't have been responsible for the death of the patrolman who was killed by a bullet with the same striations as the bullets which killed them, as he was in jail at the time. No one recovered the bullets from the scene of the shooting of Alex Karev, but I'd put money on those again having the same striations."

My phone buzzes.

"Go on."

I ignore it.

"So the most likely suspects are the people present at the first shooting, right? And I figure whoever it was would've most likely complied with the police in order to throw them off the scent if they ever needed to – not that they would, considering how George was covered in blood and tied up with a bow – and whoever it was would've also implicated George in their testimony to ensure his conviction. So who has motive? According to Doctor Sydney Heron, George was a 'have', since he was flourishing in his dream career, and by that logic, so was she. Of the other witnesses, Eli Lloyd and Gary Clark can be considered 'have not's, but only if you suppose Lloyd took a job as a nurse because he didn't have the requisite skills to be a doctor, which he did. That leaves Gary Clark." My breath is coming fast, tugging my chest up and down with it. "Who was pensioned off by the police force, obliged to become a security guard at Seattle Grace Hospital to make ends meet, trained in gun use and familiar with homicide protocol."

My phone buzzes again.

"And you believe that Gary Clark –"

I ignore it again.

"I do."

"April Kepner." Bailey has stopped completely, blocking the path, forcing a cyclist to swerve round us. I imagine her heart beating as fast as mine. "You have no evidence, no confession, no power to make an arrest –"

"But?"

"But I think that's the man who killed your friends," she says quietly. She wraps her gloved hand around mine, which is not how our relationship works (which has _never_ been how our relationship works). My throat tightens. "Honey." Her voice is gentle.

"Don't be nice." I glare at the sodden ground, at the sodden toes of my sodden boots. Why do I have to live in Seattle, surrounded by water, pelted with water even when I'm doing my damnedest not to cry? "At least three people are dead. They're the ones you should be being nice to you."

"And you'll be the one who helped bring their killer to justice."

"Not yet. That's why I called."

Her expression hardens, but with resolve, not anger. "How can I help?"

"Put it in print. Run a story about my friends, and the night they died, and George O'Malley being widely considered innocent. Mention Clark. Be…_suggestive_. Mention me." Mention me so I have to confess to Jackson, and hope he forgives me. I guess that's another conversation for the night of the gala, another admission I can't handle in the intimacy of the hotel room or bedroom. "Don't out and out accuse him, but plant the seeds. Do that, and beg and plead with your editor to run it."

"Oh, they'll be no begging and pleading about." She smooths down the front of her jacket, smiles. "He'll run it. And then?"

"And then we wait. One way or another, the truth will out."

"And the truth will set you free."

"Yes." But I'm not thinking about Gary Clark, who I've been mentally reserving a cell for in King County Jail. I'm thinking, of course, about my best friend, about how his green gaze snaps and freezes me in place and makes me warm all over in exactly the way Bailey's never could. I'm thinking about how much I want to be with him, and not to hold back, and to say all I have to say, and to do all I have to do. Yes sir, he'll get to see my Mint to Be favours.

Yes sir, he'll get to see a whole lot more than that (of me, I mean. He's going to see a lot more of me, because I'll be – you get the picture).

I wave Bailey off to her husband, and leg day, which actually seems like a really delicious idea. She doesn't wave back, so I don't wait. The rain finally stops on my way to the parking lot, so I pause with my hand on the driver's side handle. I should shake out my umbrella, right? And close and wrap the strap around it? And not just throw it on the backseat and head for the nearest deli?

"April!"

"Alex!"

I didn't even notice the cruiser pull in beside me, but Alex is out and standing beside me before I can tell him so. "Why don't you pick up your damn phone?" He demands. His nostrils are flared. His jaw is set like stone.

He's scaring me.

"I was in a meeting – Alex, what's going on?"

"It wasn't me," he insists, not answering my question. "I kept your secret, April, I swear. You're my friend, I…I'd never betray you like that."

"What's going on?" I press. My voice sounds funny. I feel funny.

"Your blonde friend, the doctor?" He's distancing himself from her. Why, when I know he knows her name? "She came by after lunch and asked to see Avery, which seemed weird, and then she asked if there was somewhere private they could talk, which seemed even weirder. Since all the conference rooms were booked, he took her into interrogation, and I snuck into the observation room." I grip the umbrella so hard my nails ache. "He wanted to know what was going on, if there was something up with her, if there was something up with you, and she said there was, with you. She said you were in the bar a few nights ago and she heard…and then she clammed up. She asked if they could go somewhere less private after all, but unless you're screwing around behind his back, I'm pretty sure she was going to tell him – God, she's probably told him by now – about you and me talking about the shootings. About you saying what he doesn't know can't hurt him." Alex sucks in air like he's choking, blows it straight back out again. "I'm pretty sure she's told him you lied, that you didn't quit the case."

"Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"Find him."

"You got it."

He slides back into his car and I drop into mine, flinging the umbrella towards the passenger side window and hoping only at the last second that it doesn't hit the glass. It does, but there's no mark. I don't care. I don't care about cracked glass, or damp upholstery, or my empty stomach. I don't care about the horns which blare as I weave between lanes, because getting pulled over is precisely what I want right now. I want a familiar figure at my window, one who'll inform me in an officer-ly manner that everything's okay, one who'll melt the block of ice sitting in my stomach.

I arrive at Callie's in record time (and not a ticket in sight). I can't bear to walk through the bar, to see people, to hear them; I charge up the fire escape that clings to the building's exterior like a black iron spider, ignoring its groans of complaint. I pound on the apartment door with my fist, because her car's here, so she's here, and she'd better not think she can hide from me.

I actually felt sorry for her.

I helped her off with her coat.

I thanked God that whatever bad thing was happening in her world wasn't happening in mine.

When the door opens, Arizona in the flesh sends me back to the night when I sat with Alex and drank beer, when she swayed in time to the music with Sofia on her hip. She never let on she believed I was doing anything wrong, or even that she'd heard anything at all. She never gave me a hint that she was about to spill my secrets to Jackson for – what? Why? I can't quite believe it. Until she confirms that's what she did, I can't quite not be optimistic about the outcome.

The heavy fire door swings shut behind me.

"What did you do, Arizona?"

Her lower lip is trembling, but all of me is trembling. That fact that her lower lip is trembling and that she's not smiling, not denying is maybe worse than the fact that it's the truth making her tremble.

"Arizona, what did you do?"

"I did it for you," she murmurs, which is the worst possible thing you could say to someone who feels the way I feel. Forget the block of ice in my stomach, my soul feels like it's peeling away from the sides of my body, collapsing in on itself like a deflated lung, curling into a ball and giving up on me, on this messed up story I called making it work.

"What did you do, Arizona?"

People who have cancer can tell they have cancer. They can see it on the doctor's face when they walk into the room, but they still need to hear it confirmed. It's their right, to know they're dying.

It's my right too.

"_What did you do_, _Arizona_?"

"I told Jackson you lied to him." Her mouth barely moves as she speaks. "I overheard you and Alex the other night, and I…you have no future together, April, no future _at all_ without honesty, if you go behind his back and put yourself in danger and act like he doesn't matter. 'What he doesn't know can't hurt him', that's what you said, but that's not how you feel, I know it's not, so I told him you lied to him. I told him you didn't quit the case."

Buried deep in the pocket of my jeans, my phone vibrates, and this time, I yank it out. I read the message.

_Not HQ_. _Not hotel_. _Not aprtmnt_. _Where wud he go_?

To somewhere that'll hurt. To somewhere that going there, finding him will be a punishment for me.

"You're not God." The loss is already with me. The pain is already with me. The grief – well, the grief has always been here. I don't get to have what I want, and it's usually my fault. I always believed I would destroy it, destroy us in the end, and now I have. "You don't get to decide how I live my life, how we live _our_ lives. We're the Mercy West two, and I'm done having people make decisions for us."

"April –"

But I'm out the door before she can stop me, taking the stairs two at a time, starting my car too abruptly and abruptly stalling it. I stab the on button on the sat nav, and a cool voice asks me to key in my destination.

S-E-A-T-T-L-E G-R-A-C-E H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L.


	16. Boy

**16. Boy**

If my life were a fairytale, what's about to happen would happen high on a hill. Because it's not, and because I'm the furthest thing in the world from a fairytale princess, it doesn't. He waits for me on the rise at the end of the car park of Seattle Grace Hospital, on ground I last saw soaked with blood.

The smell comes back to me first, sharp, like copper, salty, like the sea.

Then there's the creamy feel of the mud beneath my heels as I haul myself up the slope towards him.

Did my life as I know it begin that night, or end? Did a part of me feel the burn of the bullets like they did, bleed like them, die like them? Where is the April with the uniform and the badge and the to-thine-own-self-be-true moral code buried, and who murdered her? I did, I realise. I valued being right over being honest, over being loved. I told myself being a P.I. was who I was, but it's not. I'm a cop. I'm a cop, and I was trying so hard to move past that, I've most likely moved past the best part of my life. I've most likely moved over the best person in my life, the person who I would've chosen no matter what timeline we were in. Fate doesn't change when you change career, city, or brand of toothpaste. Man proposes, God disposes.

But God's not the only player in the game.

The thought of Arizona brings bile rushing up my throat (the same way the impossible scent of blood in the air does), but she was right. I hate her. I hate her for being right, and true, for being a fairytale princess first and my friend second. I hate her. I hate her for telling him who I really am, for confirming my secret suspicion I'm someone no one should love. I cheated on Matthew. I lied to Jackson.

I plant my feet in the place where Charles' head lay, his dark eyes like dark glass, reflecting the flashing red and blue lights.

"I should've told you." My tongue is thick, and it sticks to my teeth. "I shouldn't have promised you I would give the case. I should've given it up for you, but I…I thought it would make me better. I thought it would make everything better." But there's nothing in my gut I can blame for its aching, nothing in my heart I can blame for its breaking. There are no country songs for this. "I thought it would make me enough," I say.

There's nothing.

"That's bullshit." He doesn't look at me, probably because he can't look at me. "You're not the only one who lost Reed and Charles, but you…you wear them like a badge of honour. They're the reason you get to freak out over whatever the hell you want to freak out about, they're the reason you avoid facing up to your problems with your family and your faith, they're the reason you get to be all, 'hey, maybe I'll be with this guy, or maybe this guy, who I only banged because he almost got shot'. You didn't lie because you thought it would make us better, we were…we _were_." His voice is as bitter as the taste in my mouth. "You were enough for me, freaking out and whatever else. I got help, and I moved on, but you didn't want to move on. You _never_ wanted to move on, because then you'd have to start being honest, and that absolutely terrifies you."

"That's not it!"

Jackson turns on me. His body is powerful, his shoulders squared. "That _is_ it!" His face is wet with rain. His eyes hold nothing for me. "You make up excuses not to move forward with your life, and this is just another excuse! This is just another reason to keep me out, to keep everyone and everything that scares you out. You _love_ me." And that cuts deepest of all, through every layer of skin, to the bone, to my absent spine. "You love me, and you won't ever say it to me until I say it to you!" He breaks off, shakes his head. "For someone who believes so strongly in something she can't see, you have no faith."

"I have faith in _you_!" I choke. "I have faith you're the only one…_the_ one…and I didn't want to hurt you, and I didn't want to let you down! I have faith in us, and I used to have faith in all four of us, in the Mercy West –"

"We're the Mercy West _two_!" It explodes out of him like a bomb, like another bullet. "They died for me too! They ruined me too, but I didn't get to fall to pieces, because I had to take care of you! I had to be your friend, and keep my distance, and put myself back together, and like hell would you let me love you!"

I tremble from the force of that as he bears down on me, fists clenched. He blocks out the view, the sky, shields me from the rushing wind.

He's right too. I wouldn't let him close enough to love me, not for a long time, but he still loved me, past tense.

I love him, present tense, and the difference between us terrifies me.

"I waited," Jackson continues, and the shape of his puckered mouth is unfamiliar. "I waited for you to move on, and Matthew made me think you were, so I decided halfway there was enough. I thought…" He thought. He believed. He trusted. "I never would've let you let me if I'd thought that your dead friends – that _our_ dead friends – were still the be-all and end-all of your life. I thought you wanted me for me, not because it was me and you and them. Not because you were nostalgic."

"I wanted you! I _want_ you!"

"You don't know what you want." He's not being unkind. He's speaking to me like this so I'll understand, looking down on me to show we're not partners, not anymore.

I look up into his face, and my neck burns, and my head swims, but my eyes are dry. "I can't lose you too." How long ago was it that the rain stopped? How long was it before it started again? When did I last eat? When did I last pull oxygen into my lungs and push out carbon dioxide? When did we last have sex, make love, whatever? When did I last feel him with me, the way we were meant to be, and understand that was it, that we were it? Why can't I remember? How could I forget?

Jackson doesn't say anything for a while. He's done shouting and screaming and trying to provoke a reaction, so when he speaks again, his voice is level and somehow worse.

"I was hoping you wouldn't want to lose me, not lose me _too_."

What did I say?

"I'm not theirs, April, not anymore. I was yours, and…"

Why did I say it?

"You were mine," I manage.

"Not anymore," he repeats, and I pull back. I pull all the way back into myself like a turtle retreating into its shell, and from the inside of my skull, from behind my own eyeballs, I feel my face crumple, cringe, and hide itself away in the shelter of my hands.

_**~#~**_

"April?"

_Go away_.

"April, it's Callie."

_Go_. _Away_.

"April?"

What about locking myself in my office with a bottle of Captain Morgan does she not get? _O Captain_, _my Captain_…

"Kepner!"

"Go away," I mumble. She's the enemy (or, at least, she's married to the enemy), and if I want to lie on the floor and drink until I pee my pants (which, let's be honest, is going to happen any minute now), then I should be able to do so undisturbed. Once I've peed my pants, that'll be it. No one will ever come near me again, or love me again, firstly because I'm a liar, and secondly because I'm pretty sure it's super-duper hard to love someone with a strong commitment to day drinking and peeing their pants, and my commitment to the cause of drinking, peeing my pants and making myself as undesirable as possible is real and strong.

"I brought your stuff," Callie says brusquely. She's tiring of me already. "Since I really doubt you're going to want to come back and stay in the same house as Arizona again."

You're right, Callie Torres, you're one hundred percent right (gold star for you). I'd much rather be here on the floor with the Captain than anywhere near your Judas wife (I'm in denial about the whole 'but she was right' thing at this point in my recovery).

"But we'd really like it if you would, even though…even though I'm not so happy with her myself." She sounds regretful. She sounds wistful. She sounds a lot of things I think I probably felt when I had feelings, when there was more inside of me than an unhealthy interest in seeing how many quarts of liquor I can drink before I pass out. "She shouldn't have done that, April. She should've waited, and talked to you, she should've…something." Callie clears her throat. "You know she cheated on me?"

She did _what_, Callie Torres (no gold star for her)?

"It was a while ago, but I guess it meant she couldn't be okay another couple keeping secrets from one another. She didn't want you to feel the way she felt, the way she still feels. I get that's not an excuse, I just…I thought you should know that."

I don't care. I don't care. _I don_'_t care_. I press my face into the carpet, the fibres prickling my eyelids, irritating my skin. I don't want to see. I don't want to hear.

"April?" She whispers, one last time.

I. Don't. Care. I. Don't. Care. _I_. _Don_'_t_. _Care_.

By the next morning (the spectre of my mother – not that she's dead or anything – shamed me into crawling to the bathroom before any actual peeing could take place), I am sober enough to think about him, which is _not_ allowed to happen. I switch from drinking to eating (you didn't seriously believe I only had one super secret candy stash, did you?) cramming down candy bar after candy bar, marshmallows, gummy worms, Twinkies (I don't even like Twinkies that much, but I buy them in case of guests to said stash). Weirdly, my tolerance for food is much lower than it is for liquor, and I'm back in the bathroom before I know it, introducing the contents of my stomach to the sparkling clean toilet bowl (which I was scrubbing it at two AM because it's what my mom would do, and I wish she were here).

Purely because I want the pain, I look in the mirror. The blood vessels around my eyes have popped, ringing them with purple and red. My skin is pale and dry, flaking across my forehead and at the tops of my cheekbones. I am a wreck in what used to be a nice outfit, and I can count every one of my pores.

So, here's the thing – and stop me if you've heard this before – I am a terrible person who screwed herself out of love. I chose to be right rather than to be happy, and now not only have I destroyed my relationship person I planned on spending the rest of my life with, I've destroyed my relationship with my best friend too. I, April Kepner, do nothing by halves. It seems only fitting, therefore, that I look like I have two black eyes, that my skin is more like a snake's than a human's, and that I can count every one of my pores. This is what people should see when they look at me.

The memory of the way _he_ looked at me creases me up again. I lie back down on the floor where's it's safe and run my tongue over my teeth, tasting sour and bitter. Since I do nothing by halves, I plan on being miserable with every one of my five senses, taste included.

"Yo, Kepner!" The office door rattles as a disproportionately large fist beats on it.

He wasn't in the plan. He's not who I expected to be next, or even at all. Arizona was supposed to be next, or possibly Mark Sloan coming to kill me in a messy mafia-style sequence with opera music playing in the background.

"I'm going to count to five, and then I'm going to kick your door down. One…"

_Go away_.

"Two…"

_Go_. _Away_.

"Three…"

What about locking myself in my office and not answering my calls and texts does he not get?

"Four…"

I really don't want to have to buy a new door on top of everything else.

"Coming," I croak, but I don't even bother to stand all the way up. I shuffle towards the door on my knees, and the amount of effort it takes to reach up and press the little button which unlocks it is unbelievable. That's as far as my participation goes, and if he wants to come in, then he can open the door himself.

(He does, of course).

"Jesus Christ, Kepner." Alex stands in the doorway in full uniform, his lips pulled back from his teeth. "It reeks in here."

"It's booze," I inform him. "Vomit. The three 'cotton fresh' candles I burned because I thought hating myself would be better by candlelight."

"He dumped you?"

I don't reply. I can't. I'm aware that's a thing that happened, a thing that happened to _me_, and I felt the stroke of the knife, but I didn't feel the cut. If I accept the amputation, the piece of me that's missing, I'll bleed to death right here and now, on the already stained carpet. I drank and ate and planned to pee my pants because I lied and broke trust and sinned against God and man, but I'm not ready to wrap my head around the fact I don't care that God and I are back together now. It's the man I want. It's the man who was most likely biting the inside of his cheek so he didn't try to take care of me, his automatic response.

"He dumped you," Alex affirms, and kneels down. He rubs his thumb over the purple halo around my right eye. "Holy crap, did he hit you?"

"He'd never hit me." I wrap my fingers around his wrist and pull it away. His kindness is too much on my sore skin, on my sore soul. "I drank a lot. I ate a lot. I threw up a lot. I went all splotchy and red. He'd _never_ hit me," I repeat. "Not even if I deserved to be hit."

"No one ever deserves to be hit."

"Good thing he didn't hit me then, isn't it?"

Alex ignores my restraining hand and frames my face with his, holding me steady. I didn't even realise I was rocking. "You did a bad thing."

"Yep."

"He did worse."

I close my eyes. "Go away, Alex. I really can't deal with anything other than drinking and eating and throwing up right now. The only reason I let you in here is because I knew you weren't joking about kicking my door down."

"April." His unseen hands smooth the sweaty hair off my face. "You know I can't just leave you like this. You're a mess – you're a freaking train wreck, and you need a shower and some mouthwash something bad."

"I have nowhere to go."

"Yeah, you do." Without warning, he picks me up, holds me the way you'd hold a baby: one arm supporting my shoulders, one arm beneath my knees. "Those fancy lawyers down the hall owe you big. The least they can do is let you take a shower in their fancy bathroom."

"I don't want to go down the hall."

"I don't care."

It's so early that even the ever diligent Rose isn't in yet, so early that Meredith only opens the door only after Alex threatens to kick that down too. She has a receiving blanket over her arm, fleecy and white.

"What _is_ that smell? What the hell, Alex?"

"Avery," he grunts. "Can we use your shower, Mer?"

I didn't know they were on nickname terms. I didn't even know they knew each other well.

"It's through Derek's office."

I'm somewhere else for the next half hour. I go through the motions, but I check out of the experience. Alex waits outside the bathroom while I use shampoo and conditioner and shower gel that aren't mine and wrap myself in a towel that isn't mine. Meredith provides a silk shirt and a pair of sweats, both too pretty and too clean for the state I'm in. It's essential I check out during the shower especially, so I can skate right over the ironic parallel between now and then and another concerned cop waiting outside for me.

I don't want to come back to myself when I'm clean and dry.

I don't want to face the reality of having kept yet another person out.

Because he has no sense of ironic parallels, Alex takes me to Denny's for breakfast. "What?" He asks my raised eyebrows when we pull up outside. "You two do it on a table in here or something?"

"No!"

"Then stop looking at me like that and come get some food."

"Aren't you on the clock?"

"Not yet."

I have no idea what the time is, but most of the Denny's patrons seem like their day is ending rather than beginning. There are doctors with weary creases in their faces and wrinkled scrubs, guys with football player's shoulders who at a guess work in security, plus an annoyingly lovely girl in a vintage dress with her blonde hair foofing around her head (I might remember hearing to her sing at the jazz club two blocks over one time?) She winks at Alex as we pass by.

"Hey, Lucy."

"Hey yourself, Officer."

He orders coffee, black, and eggs, scrambled. The waitress who brings them walks with a special wiggle for him, but his attention is entirely focused on me. My attention is entirely focused on the eggs. My stomach has shrunk at the sight of them.

"Eat."

"I don't think I can."

"For God's sake, Kepner!"

For the first time since he peeled me off the floor of my office, I see a flash of what I used to believe was the real Alex Karev; now, of course, I get that I had it backwards. This Alex, the one who squeezed the ends of my hair so they wouldn't drip on Meredith's blouse, is the real Alex Karev. The Neanderthal act is just that, an act. He's worried about me. I can see it in his brown eyes, in the way he pushes the plate towards me.

"For God's sake, Alex!" I smack the table. My palm burns. "If I say I don't think I can eat them, it's because I don't think I can. It's because I don't think I have a stomach anymore, or a heart, or lungs, because if I had lungs, I could breathe, and I can't _breathe_, Alex, and I know I shouldn't expect you to understand that, because the person you love never past tense-ed you. I wish I were a victim, a real one, because then I would deserve to be plied you with compassion and eggs. I don't deserve your compassion, Alex." I didn't deserve his silence either, but he kept his peace all the same. "And I don't deserve eggs either."

His handsome is a different handsome to the sort I'm used to, but there are women envying me right now. "Everyone deserves eggs." Alex slides a coffee cup towards me, nudges the plate. "And coffee." He meets my gaze steadily. "And you have dead friends and abandonment issues, so Avery should've known better than to just drop you and leave you on your own. You spank someone, you take care of them after. You break up with someone, the same rule applies."

In spite of myself, I giggle.

"What, you've never done a little recreational spanking?"

"No…"

"You have! You so have!"

"I have nowhere to go," I say honestly.

He presses the coffee cup into my hand, arranges my fingers around it so I can't let go.

"Yeah, you do."

_**~#~**_

_Every action has an equal and opposite reaction._

For every Alex, there is a Jo.

This means that for for every Alex on Team April, there is a Jo on Team Not-Lying-To-Your-Significant-Other.

I'm sitting on his couch when Jo strolls in, a four pack swinging from her hand, her face relaxed and beautiful – until she sees me, that is. She stays beautiful, obviously, but her mouth twists and her eyebrows furrow into a straight line across her forehead.

"Hi."

"I would say hi, but I no longer acknowledge your existence, so…" So she jogs past me, now violently swinging the four pack, and disappears up the stairs.

Alex may eat like a pig, but he totally doesn't live like one. Far from the sty I was imagining, he lives in a big old rambling Victoriana gothic-esque house, where the rent is only cheap because the wiring is crappy and there's no insulation. The fridge contains orange juice, beer and a sad-looking pot of yoghurt, and in the living room is a couch Jo bought because otherwise she had to lie on the super-nice-but-super-uncomfortable hardwood floor whenever she crashed here. I am currently in hiding at Alex's house on Jo's couch, which might be part of the reason she's pledged the Not-Lying-To-Your-Significant-Other-And-Therefore-Hating-April's-Guts-For-Doing-So sorority.

I can't be mad at her, because I can't understand why Alex isn't mad at me. _I_'_m_ mad at me. Is it because he wasn't always this person? I remember how it felt when we were together (almost, thank you Jesus, only almost), and it was hot and sexy and whatever, but he didn't care (I could tell, even then). Is that why he cares now, because he still feels like he owes me?

Oh, crap.

There's yelling overhead, and I hear something smash. It sounds like another relationship biting the dust, and whose fault is that? Mine.

So that's April's relationship, destroyed.

Callie's relationship, damaged.

Alex's relationship, definitely dented. Jo has come barrelling back down, and she's wearing this pair of boots in buttery brown leather that I really want to gush over and be a girl about, but first of all, she no longer acknowledges my existence, and second of all, my staying here has just put a hitch in her happy ending.

The front door slams, and the whole house vibrates, which speaks to how old it truly is. My dad would love this house.

"I'm sorry."

Alex, who followed his girlfriend down the stairs, slumps down beside me on the couch she bought.

"You guys didn't…"

"We're not broken up," he mutters. "Not yet, anyway. She's young, young_er_, whatever. She's all idealistic and shit. She doesn't get what a freak you are, that you will literally die if there's no around to take care of you." Alex sighs, and rolls his shoulders. "I'm ready for it, by the way."

I frown. "For what?"

"You know what."

I do. Maybe he wasn't always this person, but he is now. He is a person whom I understand and who understands me, that I could never be cool. I could party all night and then drink myself to sleep and pretend the last few days never happened. I could try. I could keep trying, to drown my sorrows every which way, to drown myself on dry land, but it won't work. There's a right way through this, according to psychology and women's magazines, which is to feel how I feel: noisily, expressively, and with someone who cares about me.

I do know what, so I lean against Alex's shoulder, and I take one long, deep breath.

And then I cry, noisily and expressively, all over him.


	17. Nobody Does It Better

**17. Nobody Does It Better**

Since I sped through anger and bargaining and skipped straight to depression, it's no surprise that a week after the – breakup? Apocalyptic event? Revelation that even when I'm trying to be who I want to be with who I want to be with, I'm really bad at it? – I've bounced back to denial. I'm not in denial about Jackson and I no longer eating, sleeping or stitching our lives together like two pieces of a patchwork quilt. I'm in denial about my not being okay with it, because I am _perfectly_ okay with it. I'm okay with trying to teach Alex to feed himself, and handing out flyers for my services so the phone starts ringing again, and not going to Callie's Bar for beer or hot wings. I'm not even sure I'm in denial. I might actually be genuinely okay.

I know that's how denial works, but you know what? I was fine on my own before Jackson. I can be fine on my own after Jackson. All I need is a friend who can tell what I'm thinking from the tilt of my head, and who lets me fall asleep on him sometimes.

And I kind of sort of need to stop getting drunk with Alex.

His face is right next to mine, which is most likely because I just showered him with my hand of cards (I lost this round of gin, plus the three rounds before this round of gin). He's in denial too (we discussed it, and we both slurred the word 'denial'), about Jo still not speaking to him. He's called her, and I've called her, but she's maintaining radio silence.

"To not shitting where you eat." He clinks his bottle against mine.

"Ewww."

"Come on, you have to have heard that phrase before."

"I have, but it still doesn't make sense." I redo the very, _very_ slippery second button of my blouse, straighten my back, and give him my best impression of sober. He chuckles. "Being a police officer is not the same as eating, and being in love with Jo is not the same as doing number twosies."

"'Number twosies'? Where do you do those, in your diaper?"

"Shut up!"

Dark was the night when we popped the tops on our first beers. Dark _is_ the night now, actually. It's past ten, and I've been doing a lot of running and not a lot of working, so it's not like I have anything to get up early for. If this were Callie's, I would've stopped after one drink, or two. If this were Callie's, I wouldn't be sitting right next to Alex. I wouldn't be so aware of how near I am to Alex, and how near I am to doing something stupid if or when he decides to do something stupid with me. Anyway, I'm drunk, and I'm in denial, and this is not Callie's.

Someone raps on the glass pane of the front door, their knuckles playing a series of sharp little staccato taps.

"Who the hell –"

"I'll get it."

I know who he wishes it were, and I know who I wish it were, but I'm still steady on my feet (sort of), which is more than I can say for Officer Alexander Karev, SPD. That means I get to get the door.

That doesn't mean I have to like our caller.

Stephanie Edwards looks prettier under the porch light than I've ever seen her look before. It could be the mustard-coloured sweater which flatters her skin; it could be the carefully styled hair. Either way, I envy her. I look worse than she's ever seen me look before, thinner, with the band around my ponytail showing elastic and the shadows beneath my eyes revealing more than she needs to know about how I've been sleeping. She takes a step back when I open the door (truth be told, I have to lean on it slightly), like whatever I have might be contagious.

"Stephanie."

"Kepner."

So, she's decided to be rude. I can be rude. I _can_.

No. No, I can't.

"Can I help you?"

She hoists her purse higher up her arm. It's pretty too, and it has a red strap. "You look like crap."

"Thank you. So much." Would she look like crap if she were me? No, probably not. Her bone structure is too good. I hate her. I hate her, and I hate her good bone structure, and I hate her ability to be rude because she wasn't born and raised in the Midwest (unless she was, in which case…I still hate her).

"I'm glad," she says. "I'd think less of you if you didn't look like crap."

So Stephanie Edwards knows, which is great. I mean, I didn't assume she wouldn't know, since she knows Jo, and she knows Jackson, and everyone I know in this city seems to also know everyone else I know.

"Does –"

"He doesn't look like crap," she informs me crisply. "In case you were wondering."

Of course he doesn't. They have too good bone structure in common.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, which is as rude as I can manage. I blame my parents, and I blame the state of Ohio. I blame everyone except myself, because according to the self-help book I bought online, 'externalising accountability is a hallmark of denial'.

Yes, I bought a self-help book about denial. No, I haven't washed my hair in two days.

Stephanie's hair is glossy and black, and tonight it falls to her shoulders in one smooth sheet. It's gorgeous. _She_'_s_ gorgeous.

I hate her.

"I don't owe you an explanation."

"No." And she is so smug about that. In her mind, she has every right to be smug about the fact we've become a cliché, that I'm the evil cheerleader who got scalped and she's nerdy girl in the glasses and that any second now, the quarterback is going to see who she is inside. "And I don't owe you one either." The thing is, she's not that girl. _I_'_m_ that girl. I'm Ducky (not _Pretty in Pink_ Jon Cryer Duckie, but the female Seattle-based late twenties version who still has no one to dance with at the prom).

"You don't owe me anything."

"I'm drunk," I tell her. "If that helps."

From the spring in her step as she marches her (admittedly pretty) ass off Alex's porch, it does.

_**~#~**_

"'The only suspect left in the frame is former police officer Gary Clark, who was present in his capacity as security guard at Seattle Grace Hospital that night…'" Back when Bailey used to lay trails of breadcrumbs for me and get me caught up in crimes I didn't want to get caught up in, she got the by-line and I got a picture in the top right corner of the article. I'm wearing a lot of lipstick in that picture, and I don't really recognise myself. "This is good. This is perfect, Bailey."

"Tell me something I don't know." She sits back in her chair, wriggling with satisfaction.

(I pretend not to notice her feet leaving the ground).

"This is going to set a fire under him." I don't mean to sound so pleased about it, but I am. Either he'll hand himself in, or the police will cave to public pressure and bring him in. That'll be it. That'll be the end. I'll have to find something new to be the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning.

"I'm sorry it's come at such a high price."

"Not you too!"

Her eyebrows lift. In the Book of Bailey, that's a bad sign. "I am Miranda Bailey. I see everything, and I hear everything, and if you're foolish enough to make a big, dramatic, rain-soaked scene in a public parking lot, then I'll most likely hear about it before you do."

It wouldn't even surprise me if she could bend the laws of space and time to make that possible.

"What would you do? If you were me?"

Her eyebrows inch even higher (which is a worse sign). "What would _I_ do? I would remember the thousands of women who fought to ensure that I _could_ make my own decisions, that I _could_ pursue a criminal case, that I _could_ walk around Seattle with my head held high because I _did_ do my best by an innocent man, that's what I would do. I would keep my head up, Kepner." But the press of her lips together reminds me of Arizona, if only a little, of the care and compassion she gives to even the newest and tiniest things. "But I would also take some time to figure out what I can't live without. Those women fought so you could choose a man or a career, or both. That's what it is to be empowered. Figure out what you can't live without," she decrees. "And if the wind's blowing the way I think it's blowing, go ask Pretty Green Eyes what he can't live without, and then go from there."

"You think I'm going to choose a guy over my job?"

"I think you're going to stop needing to lie to people when you stop needing to lie to yourself." Whatever _that_ means. "Jackson Avery included. Stop being all swirly about it for a minute or two. Have a break. Drink your milkshake."

"I don't want to drink my milkshake. I ordered tea, where's my –"

"Kepner?"

"Mmmm?"

"Drink the damn shake before I climb over this table and _make _you drink the damn shake."

We part outside the coffee shop, which is warm and steamy and painted brown. The air outside is warm and steamy and grey, because the clouds are basically a big blanket blocking out the sun, and it hasn't rained hard enough to clear the moisture from the air. I exercise my right as a woman, won for me by centuries of women, to go for a walk until the lunch rush is over and it's less hassle to hail a cab. The coffee shop was upmarket and so is the area, and it's nice – easy, I guess – just to stroll and hum and peer in the windows of boutiques filled with clothes I can't afford, or wouldn't wear even if I could.

Or could I?

See, there's this dress, and I tried to avoid looking at it as I passed by (because then I knew I would _have_ to look closer, and stop, and go into the store), but I couldn't. It's green. It's silky. There are ruffles around the strapless top, and it's the most wonderful shade of green, and it's my dress. It's unquestionably my dress. It was made for me (possibly by elves).

Unless you've been through depression and back to denial and dipped into anger once or twice over the person you planned to spend the rest of your life with, you've never felt the way I've felt this past week. Nothing is light. Everything is heavy. Every time you laugh, you feel dishonest, and don't get me wrong, I deserve to feel crappy. I do. I do, for a number of reasons: number one, Jackson is it for me, and I don't need time or space to figure that out. Number two, Jackson is my friend, and he was my friend a long time before he was it for me, and when he hurts, Stephanie hurts, and so do I, so at this moment we're stuck in this circle of hurting and being hurt until we move on, and he ends up in bed with her, and I end up in bed with chocolate and badly written erotica. I deserve to feel crappy. I do.

But not feeling crappy because of this dress, because of this minute I get to spend away from myself, is nothing short of awesome.

So I buy the dress, because it's what the girl in the romantic comedy who figures out what she's going to do would do, and I would give a lot to be that girl.

(Again).

_**~#~**_

Alex agreed to cooking classes in theory, but getting him in the kitchen is practically impossible. He has this weird sixth sense for when the words 'can you just chop this?' are going to come out of my mouth, and makes sure he works super long hours (it might even be his superpower). That means that by the time he does get in, I've made dinner, because we're essentially married at this point. He brings home the bacon, I cook the bacon, and then we eat it and don't have sex after (that's the guy perspective on marriage, right?) There's even a porch swing out front in case one of us decides to be all _Gone With the Wind_ about it.

"Hey. You ready to have a deep, meaningful discussion about your crappy girl feelings?"

"Hey. You ready for some non-fried-but-still-delicious chicken with vitamin-rich vegetables?"

"You take the fun out of everything." He drops into a chair at the kitchen table, rolling his shoulders to shake the weight of the day off them. It's a habit of his. You notice things like that when you live with someone. "But fine, lay it on me."

I throw a napkin at him, since it's the only way I can get him to use one. "You know, I'm starting to remember why I used to hate you so much. It was a heady mixture of bad manners, body odour…"

"Shut up."

"Bad facial hair…"

Alex flicks at pea at me, which I then have to scoop up with a wad of kitchen paper before I forget about it and end up mashing it into the floor. He lets out an exasperated sound.

"How did Avery stand it? You're a born mom."

We both stop. I stop scooping, he stops eating. He stares at me, I stare at the pea, and then I come slowly up from my squat and go to the trashcan. I put the towel and its pea payload into the trashcan, lift my foot so the lid falls back into place, then stop again. Strangely, denial works best on big things: kissing, for example, what I would've said at the Harper Avery Foundation gala and how I would've said it, the inevitable slide from living in each other's pockets to actually living in the same house (the way Alex and I currently do) and seeing each other every day. I can deal with deluding myself I'm okay about those things. The small things, though? The picking up after him, movie night, Seattle Police Department hoodie things?

"Are you…" Alex swallows audibly. "Are you going to eat any of this?"

"Nope." Thank God this _Gone With the Wind_-style house has a _Gone With the Wind_-style liquor cabinet, even if I have to stand on my tiptoes to pick out a bottle of bourbon. I wiggle it at him. "Are you going to drink any of this, or do you want me to accidentally mention your girlfriend first?"

His eyes are dangerous.

I'm hoping mine are too.

So, that's the story of how I decided to do something stupid with Alex. I've been gearing up for a while to do something stupid with Alex, because…because not enough people are in pain, apparently. My liver and my libido have teamed up to engineer this evening, us sitting on the floor in front of Jo's couch instead of on the cushions. It's been a long time, but I remember how this goes (and besides, I'm drunk, and I don't care about big or small things like love, and him being the wrong guy, and me being the wrong girl).

"You know I like you, right?"

"But you don't _like_ me like me?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I don't _like_ you like you either."

"It's all about them."

"It is all about them."

Alex dips his head in towards my neck, smelling my perfume. I stroke the short hair at that base of his skull and try not to breathe too loud.

When I wake up tomorrow and I hate myself, maybe that'll be enough pain. Maybe sex will Alex will be enough. He can knock me through the walls and bounce me off the ceiling and pretend I'm Jo, and I'll pretend he's Jackson, and maybe that'll be enough.

"Apes."

Maybe I'll learn to like being bounced off the ceiling.

"What?"

"Do you – door."

"Huh?"

"There's someone at the door."

Of course there's someone at the door. Of course there are two people at Alex's door in two days. Of course someone chose to knock on the door right before someone climbed on top of someone else. It's probably Jesus. He's probably here to tell me that premarital sex with one guy is all well and good, but premarital sex with every guy within a five mile radius isn't the greatest idea I've ever had. _But Jesus_, I protest internally, leaning on the couch to lever myself upright. _If I screw myself past the point of no return (no pun intended) by having sex with Alex_,_ it might stop me losing sleep and/or sanity over all the other sins I've committed._

_I can just lose sleep and/or sanity about having had sex with Alex instead_.

It's not Jesus at the door, though (which is a great way to prove to yourself you're not as drunk as you think you are). It's Jackson, and Jackson looks through the glass at me like I'm a stranger, we've only met once or twice before and he can't quite remember my name.

Fine. _Fine_. He can't remember me? Fine.

"Alex!" I yell, without turning my head. "Door!"

Time slows down. A thousand years pass before Alex comes out of the living room, and it's at least another thousand before he reaches the door and pulls it open. He's doing it for my benefit, giving me time to pull myself together, but I'm already together. I'm so together that if you sawed me in half with a chainsaw, I would still be in one piece. That's how together I am.

"Sorry," says Alex, grinning. "But she only wears a scarlet A on the weekends, and I forgot to lock her in the attic after dinner."

It appears that in addition to watching Richard Burton, Alex Karev makes literary jokes.

This is shaping up to be the weirdest night _ever_.

"April." Jackson's features are tight with tension. "Can we talk?"

I've thought about speaking to him a lot over the past week, but I've been in denial about thinking about speaking to him, so I've been telling myself I've actually been doing something else. I've thought about what he'd say, and what I'd say. Since I'm feeling so gosh darn chainsaw-proof, my sassy retort is, "Sure. Why not? I'm here, you're here, we both have working mouths and tongues and larynxes and we can use our hands to make gestures if we want to."

I really wish I weren't so gosh darn chainsaw-proof. I wish I had a chainsaw right here and now, so I could cut off my own head and shut off the babbling.

"Can we talk?" He insists. His hands are deep in his pockets, so I'm guessing gestures are a no-no. "Without your keeper listening? Please?"

Alex snorts. "Get off my porch, Avery."

Oh my God. My life is genuinely turning into _Gone With the Wind_ (in addition to _The Scarlet Letter_ and _Jane__ Eyre_, that is).

"We can talk." I touch Alex's arm, and Jackson's gaze locks onto my fingers like I might flip him off when he's not paying attention. "We'll go in the kitchen."

"Apes –"

"Alex." I squeeze his elbow reassuringly. He doesn't seem reassured. "It's okay. I'm okay."

He just snorts again, and slouches back into the living room for ease of acting like he's not eavesdropping. It would have been a good kiss if I'd kissed him. It would have been good sex if I'd had sex with him, but Jesus would not be down with that – and not that it matters, but neither would Jackson. I can feel his eyes on my back me as we go through to kitchen, where I fill the sink with water and get down and dirty with the dishes as an excuse not to face him.

"Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"What you said to Karev? Are you okay?"

I guess I must have messed up another relationship if Alex is 'Karev' now.

"Do I look okay?"

"You look…"

I laugh. I don't know what else to do. "You don't have to be a nice guy, Jackson. I'm not a nice girl, remember?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are you talking like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like nothing matters!"

This wasn't supposed to be dramatic. I was supposed to be cool and calm and chainsaw-proof, but I have to turn around to stack the dishes in the drainer, and he's not cool or calm or chainsaw-proof. He's standing closer than I realised, standing over me. He's in my space. He's in my head.

"You _left_," I hiss, like there's any hope of keeping this conversation even quasi-private. "I have this thing about being abandoned, which you are _fully_ aware of, and you _broke up _with me and then _left _me in a parking lot, and then – and then nothing! Where was the 'are you okay' then, Jackson? I lied, we've established that, and you made up your mind that you didn't want to be with me – _fine_. We're broken up, which means nothing that used to matter matters anymore. You have no right to show up here uninvited and be an ass to Alex and act all pissy because I'm not happy to see you."

"Alex," he repeats.

Is he grinding his teeth?

"Oh. _Oh_." I clutch the counter behind me, and I laugh again because I still don't know what to do. "I could still be in the parking lot for all you care, couldn't I? That's not why you came by. You came by to make sure I wasn't sleeping with Alex, because only Jackson gets to screw April. You planted your flag in me like some sort of crazy explorer, so it has to be you and me for me, you and me or nobody." I'm laughing so hard, my ribs ache. It's just the bourbon doing what it does, but it would be super-duper great if the bourbon could stop bourbon-ing before I start crying.

Jackson's arms go around me, but he's not trying to be romantic or comfort me or behave any other way I would understand. His palms cover mine, pressing my hands harder into the countertop, trapping the two of us in yet another circle. That's us, circles around circles, taking turns chasing each other (and maybe I did get butterflies when Alex was all over me earlier, but they were small and weak compared to what I have now. These kick me in the gut; these hit me hard.

These are undeniable.

"I'm sorry I hurt them," I tell him. "Your feelings."

"You're so much more," he replies. "Than I ever thought you were."

"Not so much less?"

"No."

What does that even mean?

_Kiss him_!

Shut up, Satan or Jesus or Libby, Kimmie and Alice. I am not small and weak. I am strong. I am chainsaw-proof, and he left me in the Seattle Grace parking lot to fall to pieces. I will not be the girl in the romantic comedy who's swayed by metaphorical insects.

(Again).

"Stephanie Edwards came by last night."

That does it. He pulls back from me, so I couldn't kiss him even if I had to. "What did she want?"

"She wants you." I fold my arms. My heart throbs like it's reaching out for the pulse in my wrist. "You could give her some tips about planting flags in people."

That seriously does it. Jackson goes full on Greek god, statue, whatever, folding his arms to match mine, putting up a physical barrier between us since we did such a good job with the emotional one. "So she could pass them on to Alex?"

"Alex loves Jo."

Jackson considers that statement too long. "So it's not the word you have a problem with," he says finally, and I flinch.

"And we're done here."

"We're so done here."

"Alex," I call, since there's no way he wasn't listening (he clearly thinks he can't trust one of us, but which one? And can't trust us to do – or not to do – what? Commit a bloody murder-suicide in his kitchen? Bounce each other off the ceiling?) "You should go ahead and grab hold of what you love before you lose it."

To do or not to do, that is the question.

Because of Jackson, because of me and Jackson, I've become kind of a student of anatomy. I can almost feel the bunched muscles in his shoulders, and my own stomach muscles tighten in response. "Alex." He's mocking me. Yay. "You should go ahead and grab hold of what you love before_ it_ loses _you_." Then, he flips up his hood, and because I'm drunk and no longer in denial, becomes attractive in this exotic way I can't tear my eyes away from. It's a sweatshirt, for God's sake, not a stripy pharaoh's hat or a sheik's flowing whatever – but I couldn't turn away if I tried.

They'd be a match made in heaven, that hoodie and Stephanie Edwards' mustard-coloured sweater.

I go back into the living room when he's gone, the force of his exit shaking the house with a similar amount of force to Jo's. Alex proffers the bottle of bourbon. In his black t-shirt and jeans, he's not even a little bit exotic. He's ordinary.

He's safe.

"Well?" He asks.

"Well," I answer, although it's not technically his question I'm answering. "I figured out what I can't live without."

"That sounds like it sucks."

"It does."

It really does.


	18. People Get Ready

**18. People Get Ready**

"It's time to go."

"Is it?" My cup of coffee has gone cold, despite its cardboard sleeve. My cheeks are cold, probably pink from the wind. I painted my nails last night (which made Alex's face go all scrunchy), so they're pink too.

"It is."

Being here is hard. It's like picking a scab, like choosing to bleed. That's the difference about coming here of my own free will, though – I'm choosing to bleed. It feels good to feel pain, because I'm sitting in a cemetery, and any reminder I'm still alive and kicking (and freezing my ass off in a maybe fifty percent wool coat) is something to be grateful for. It's the wrong time of year for lists of what you're grateful for, but I'm grateful all the same.

And also freezing.

But mostly grateful.

The damp grass has soaked through the seat of my jeans, and I'm stiff from sitting down so long. Hunt wraps his long fingers around my elbow and heaves me up, gripping my shoulder to steady me when I wobble. Together, we stare down at the single stone.

"Where is he?"

"Minnesota, I think. Where he was born."

_Reed Elizabeth Adamson_, it reads. _Beloved daughter_. Below that are her dates of birth and death, with too few years between.

"You know," he says, and the pauses he leaves tells me he's picking his words with care. "A tragedy doesn't stop being a tragedy just because time passes. I understand that better than most people."

"How do you do it?" I ask. "How do you honour their memory without carrying them around with you? It feels like…it feels like I've been trying to keep them alive ever since, because I couldn't save them when it actually happened. I mean, I wasn't even there. I was trying to eat those stupid rubbery eggs." The memory of their taste and texture closes my throat. It's a struggle to speak straight away afterwards.

Hunt gives me a gentle side-on shake, then lets me go. I'm strong enough to stand on my own now. "By living, April. What other way is there?" He passes the back of hand over his face, wiping away an expression I don't need to see. "I love my wife for all the guys who didn't get to come home to theirs. I protect the people of this city the way they protected the people of this country."

"So I should live my life for her."

"No, you should live your life for you. I never met Officer Adamson, but she was your friend, your best friend. She would want you to live your life for you. And –" His blue eyes laser into me, but the colour already brightening my cheeks hides my answering flush. "She would understand if you decided to make a living person your priority. Otherwise, you may as well just bury your heart in the ground with her, or go to Minnesota and bury it there. The end result is the same."

"Do you think I'm a coward?" I'm stalling by this point, trying to delay our departure, because I know deep down that this visit will be my last. Reed's parents will take care of her stone, and other visitors will pass by and read her name. I'm done with death and dying.

"I think you're afraid," he responds. "Which isn't the same as being a coward. Cowardice to me means being afraid and refusing to do anything about it – not the same as being incapable of doing anything about it, which was you for a long time – you actively have to choose cowardice over courage to be a coward. What you've done for George O'Malley? Courageous." He picks up his feet and starts heading towards the church. I follow along behind him, telling myself it's only so I can still take part in the conversation.

But I don't look back.

"Some people only have a set amount of courage," Hunt goes on. "But I don't believe you're one of those people. I believe that if you dig deep, you'll find more than enough to be brave about any and all of the things that matter to you, no matter what they may be."

"You heard," I accuse.

"Yes, I heard."

We reach the boundary wall, which is built from heather grey stone, and stop where the graves end and the courtyard begins. I pick at the seam on my coffee cup for something to do with my itchy fingers. "I'm not sure that's something I can just decide to be brave about."

"And I'm sure you know best." He takes the cup from me and, without even glancing behind him, tosses it neatly into a wrought iron trashcan. "Your contractor called the office today, by the way. Your apartment is now safe, sanitary and up to code, so you can move back in anytime. The couch came off worst, since the floorboards were sealed."

Which means my super expensive cream leather couch saved me.

Who'd have thought it?

"But you still have no idea who's responsible?"

"I'm sorry, no." Hunt rubs the back of his neck, which is bright red above the shelter of his jacket. "There were no fingerprints on the bottle, you can buy petrol from just about anywhere, and the fuse had been doused in bleach to destroy any trace evidence. The paint on your door was paint, nothing distinctive about it."

"So I guess that's it, then."

"For now."

I sigh, shake me head, then incline towards the church. "Can I have a minute?"

He consults his watch. "You can have…all the time in the world, actually. I have a meeting to get to." He smiles down at me, all tall and broad and redheaded, not handsome but attractive, not scary but strong, and solid as a rock. "Will you have a drink with me tonight?"

"Why?"

"Progress like this is worth celebrating."

_Progress like this is worth celebrating_. If he'd shouted that inside the empty church, it wouldn't resound any louder in my head than they are now. Progress. Marching forward. Moving on. Not looking back at Reed's grave. Progress. Showing her to someone else, having them watch while I scrubbed the stone, turning it from dull grey to dull white. Progress. Climbing into his truck in my cheap coat when he asked me to, not evading, not claiming I had somewhere else to be or something else to do (not that I do, because my business is currently deader than disco). Progress. Talking to God about Charles and Reed without getting sad, without getting mad at Him, without demanding He explain why.

I go down on my knees in the back row.

"Dear Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for the sun shining, even if it is as cold as a – anyway. Thank you for Reed, even for the short life she had, and thank you for Charles, even for the short life he had. Mom always said You're all about mysterious ways, so I have to believe their being shot was something I don't understand, but You do; that it happened for a reason that doesn't concern me. You might tell me when I die, I don't even – anyway." It smells good in here, musty, familiar. Saint Michael smells like this. This is how it smelled when I kissed Matthew for the first time. "Thank you, God, for Matthew Taylor." Whose words ring in my heart as loudly as Owen Hunt's ring in my head. "Thank you for the lessons he taught me, and please give him happiness in his work and in his life. What other way is there?"

Progress.

"Amen."

The thing is, I don't need to look back. He's always with me. They're always with me, in jokes and half-remembered lunch breaks, in vivid memories like Reed's party. Just because I can't see them doesn't mean they're not there.

My name is April Kepner, not Trigger, not Reed's best friend or person who knew Charles held a torch for Reed. I believe in things I can't see, can't touch, can't use as a crutch to prop me up or fight off the things that frighten me. My hair will stay red because I like the colour, not because it was her colour. My life will go on.

And I am okay with that.

_**~#~**_

"Mrs Webber." I smile and deposit a box of caramelised croissants in front of her. I'm hoping for the best, but just in case… "How are you?"

She reaches across her desk to playfully smack my arm. "April Kepner, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Adele? And what's this? Are you trying to bribe me?"

"I am."

"Well then, game on." Flipping the lid, she carefully selects the largest pastry and tears off a sticky, flaky piece. "How can I help you, honey?"

"I need the report on my apartment fire for my insurer, but what would be _really_ great is if you could find a way of making sure Jo Wilson is the one who brings it down."

Adele purses her purple lips. "The scrappy brunette who was with you before?" She snorts. "I'm not denying she's pretty, but you should see the way these men act around her! They fall over themselves every time she walks by, she might as well be Elizabeth Taylor! And Elizabeth Taylor liked beating on men too, you know."

"I do."

Baked goods may be Adele Webber's kryptonite, but she's still sharp as a tack (even as she starts in on her second croissant). "You don't want me to tell her it's you who's waiting for her, do you?"

"No, ma'am."

She winks. "Take a seat."

Even sergeants don't dare defy Mrs Webber, but Jo can obviously sense something's up. She exits the stairwell with her shoulders up by her ears, bristling; she sees me, and her mouth purses like a sexy, angry strawberry. "Here's your report," she snaps, thrusting it into my hands. "Have a nice day, don't come back soon, blah blah blah." Then she tries to turn her back on me, but I grab onto one of her belt loops before she can stalk back upstairs. For my moxie, Jo spins around, pulling her head into her neck like she's gearing up to butt me with it.

"Get off of me!"

"What the heck is wrong with you?" I demand, sounding more confident than I feel (that's the goal, anyhow). "Alex is a great guy. He might even be one of the best guys. He took me in when I had nowhere to go, he stayed my friend and kept my secret and was someone I could rely on, he scraped me off the floor of my office when he didn't have to. That's a great guy. You can agree with me or not agree with me about whether or not it's acceptable to lie to someone you're in a super intense yet strangely boundary-free relationship with, but Alex Karev is great, and you're punishing him for being great."

"I am not punishing him!"

"Yes, you are. You're being a girl." Her eyes go all evil and squinty. "You're not talking to him because he chose my side over Jackson's, AKA yours, and you're wondering if he's lied to you, if he thinks it's okay to lie to you. Trust me, he doesn't." I unhook my fingers from her belt and stand up. "Alex would never lie to you, and he'd never hurt you – not deliberately, anyway. He loves you."

_That_ hurts me: to see her face go all soft and certain.

"This really isn't any of your business, April."

Progress.

"It's totally my business!" My hands are up and waving like I'm directing traffic. "Before you met him, he was a jerk, but he learnt how not to be a jerk and how to be a decent human being, and now he's my friend, so now you need to learn to stop being a jerk too! Neither of you have any table manners, and you can both drink me under the table, and you're both decent human beings once you make it past the sloppy slash prissy exterior, and you're so clearly meant to be that even I can see it! Me! And I'm as emotionally stunted as they come!"

Jo wrinkles her nose. "Did you seriously call me prissy, Kepner?"

"Not the point!"

"Nope." She sits down in the seat next to mine, so I sit too. "The point, which was buried in there under six feet of your own crap, is Alex is the kind of guy who can't stand by when someone else is hurt. I can deal with that."

"You _should_ deal with that." What other way is there for her, for Alex? They fit together so annoyingly well, I practically hear a _click_ in my head every time I see them together. They're like magnets with the same polarity, except they attract rather than repel.

(Reading science fiction instead of romance isn't working out like I'd hoped).

Jo's hair is in a chubby plait today. She wriggles it over one shoulder, rubs her palms of the knees on her uniform pants. "You can't be home tonight." She grins. "There's going to be beer and lingerie, and as nice as I can only imagine you look in lingerie, it's drunks with no table manners only." She's gone all bright and shiny, like someone lit a candle inside her (I didn't realise there was such a thing as pre-sex glow, but it exists, and Jo has it). "Don't you have any other great men you can hang out with, or great women you can give pep talks to?"

What I have is Hunt's (Owen's, he keeps asking me to call him Owen) invitation.

"Luckily for you, I do." I wave the report on my apartment at her. "Thanks for this, by the way. I might even have moved out by the time you get there tonight."

Her expression clouds over. "April, someone put a petrol bomb through your mail slot. Are you sure it's a good idea to move out of Casa Cop when there's such a thing as earplugs?"

I laugh. She has this cool way of talking about sex which makes me feel like part of the club, and I've never felt like part of the club before – although that could be because up until recently, I didn't meet the requirements to be part of the club, not that there's an actual club (not that this metaphor has run away with me or anything). Anyway, Jo has this cool way of talking about sex, so I laugh, and wrap my scarf more tightly around my neck. "You and Alex have your icky fun. I don't have a couch to catch fire anymore."

"So what will you do?"

"Uh, sit on the floor?"

With a warren of dust bunnies, and possibly a few beers of my own.

Progress.

_**~#~**_

I'm not going to worry about seeing Arizona tonight (also, I called ahead to check she's on call, so it's safe for the Chief and I to celebrate my no longer being certifiably crazy [although I get to keep my natural crazy, as is the tradition of farm girls who willingly choose a career with running and jumping and shooting] at Callie's, where we first properly met). I'm also not going to worry about tonight being the night of the Harper Avery Foundation gala, where Jackson planned to introduce me to his mother as whatever I was to him, where I planned to coolly, casually (like I've ever been cool or casual in my life), tell him what he was to me (what he _is_ to me). I'm not going to worry about either of those things.

Does reminding yourself not to worry about something count as worrying about it?

Am I seriously worrying about worrying right now?

But Callie's Bar welcomes me back like I was never away. The décor is the same, the tables surrounded by college kids are still the stickiest, and The Police are singing about how every little thing she does is magic. Hunt is sitting at the bar, in the same spot where he sat when we accidentally had breakfast together, and other than the scotch he's drinking instead of coffee, nothing's changed.

Nothing other than me, that is.

Progress.

"Happy Friday!" I say to no one in particular, excuse me and pardon me-ing my way onto the stool beside his.

"You could just say hi." Callie cleans and shelves a glass, tidies the straws and stirrers, licks her lips and swallows before turning to me. I don't know what she expected to see (or maybe what she wanted to see?) "It's okay just to say hi, Kepner, you don't have to be all Mary Poppins about it."

"It's a Friday," I point out. "And I'm happy."

"Cheers to that." Hunt raises a sandy brow and his tumbler. "Torres, can you –"

"I can." She won't look me in the eye, so it's only when she's halfway through mixing something bright green that I realise it's for me. The glass is frosted, and the drink tastes like melon.

"Thanks, Callie."

"Anytime."

I swivel until I'm facing Owen (the Chief, Hunt, whatever), and cross my ankles – I don't do it for his benefit or anything, but that's what I do. "Boise, Idaho." I have another sip of drink. "You went to Boise, Idaho for your manly vacation, when you live in the undeniably beautiful Pacific Northwest. It's pointless trying to outrun Cristina, you know, I've tried to beat her to the elevator in our building before. She always manages to get the doors closed before I can reach it."

He chuckles. "Do you have any idea how hard she is to explain to people who've never met her? I can tell them the bad, that she's abrasive, impersonal, rude, and they get the wrong idea. I can tell them the good, that she's compassionate, honest, trustworthy, and they get the wrong idea. I can tell them we live together, and they get the wrong idea. I can tell them we take separate vacations, and they get the wrong idea." The ice in his glass makes a shimmering sort of sound as he swirls it around. "She's an acquired taste, I get that. She's…well, she's single malt scotch."

"Hmmm." I swirl my glass likewise, watching the green liquid slosh. "What if that's what I need?"

"What?" Both eyebrows rise this time.

"I like what everyone likes." A barfly who's playing darts in a non-playing darts appropriate halter top has paid her dues to the jukebox and changed the music. This one is slower, and the singer's voice is strong, smooth, slightly hoarse. "I like peanut butter cup ice cream, I like _Star Wars_, I like hearing my feet crunch on the leaves in fall. If something is difficult to like, like art, or opera, or Cristina, chances are I won't like it – I have to get used to it, like medicine or vegetables." And sometimes, I forget she's compassionate and honest and trustworthy, and I hate her for as long as it takes to climb the stairs. "So I paint my apartment walls the colour everyone paints their apartment walls, and I order the drink everyone orders, and I date the guy everyone wants to date." Dated. I_ dated _the guy everyone wants to date, past tense. "What I'm starting to realise is maybe…maybe…maybe I only want what I want because everyone else wants it too."

_And maybe that includes Jackson_.

"And maybe that includes Jackson."

"Bullshit."

It comes out on a cough, and Hunt and I both jump. Callie's looking me in the eye now, alright. She's more than looking me in the eye. She's staring me down, and she wears a lot of black eyeliner, and her eyes are so dark they seem black, and I kind of regress to the peeing my pants place in my mind (I'm thinking of calling it my Ducky place).

"Bullshit," she repeats, and slams down a bottle of Midori on the perfectly polished bar. "I have had it up to _here_ with you making excuses for not telling Avery you're cuckoo for his Cocoa Puffs. You were barely tolerable when you were just friends, with the touching and the staring and the convincing yourselves you weren't into each other when it was as clear as the _lovely_ paint Arizona helped choose for your apartment walls."

"Callie –"

"_Alto_!" Apparently, I've driven her to speaking Spanish. Fantastic. "And then you _finally_ got together, which even I have to admit was really cute, and then you went and screwed it up! Okay, so Arizona helped, but then you were moping all over Karev, which was bad, and Jackson was moping all over my bar, which was worse! And since, unlike you, I occasionally talk to Owen about something other than myself, I know you've shared your Avery angst with him, which means you've told everyone from the chief of police to your friendly neighbourhood bartender how you feel about Jackson, and you still don't get it!"

"_What_? What don't I get?" When did I stand up? I don't remember standing up, but I'm standing up, leaning across the bar towards her, crazy eyes and crazy eyeliner and all. "What don't I get?"

"Kepner," Callie says gently. "Owen's a tough guy, right? He climbs mountains. The right person for him is someone who's enough of a challenge to keep him interested, someone who's worth the climb, someone you'll never understand unless you meet them. You? You're a tough girl, but you have pieces missing. The right person for you is someone who's so tuned into your frequency that they can see those gaps, that they can find those pieces. The right person for you is someone who knows you better than you know yourself, the guy everyone wants to date because they look at you two, and it makes sense. It makes so much sense that they decide then and there that's what they want. April." She doesn't take my hand, because we're not there, but she does lay hers on top of mine. "The only person you haven't told how you feel about Jackson is Jackson. You get scared, and convince yourself that you're not enough, that he's not enough, but the only way to be enough is to be honest with each other. You have to tell him how you feel so he can tell you how he feels. You have to give him a piece of you to get a piece in return, and he has no reason to say uncle, so you'll have to."

"I don't like peanut butter cup ice cream," Hunt adds.

"I don't want to date Jackson."

"I…" Standing up was a good idea. Standing up was probably the best idea I've ever had. "I have to go." And the funny thing is, even if Callie hadn't just given me that big old speech, I would've still had to go. The universe has been pulling at me for a while now, but I waited. I held out for the final piece, and here it is.

The drink. My dress. His eyes.

They're all green.

"Where are you going?" Callie demands as I drain my glass, as I grab my cheap coat, as I high five the girl in the inappropriate top. I'm either in the middle of a psychotic break, or the biggest movie moment in my thus far non-movie moment-filled life.

"I'm moving on!" I announce, and the bell over the door chimes as I rush out into the street, and it rings louder in my head than echoes in an empty church, but I don't look back.

Progress.

_**~#~**_

So, I bought this green dress, and I'm pretty sure this green was meant for something big – not presidential inauguration big but, say, love of your life big. I have this green dress, and I have these shoes to go with this green dress, and I'm pretty sure I can get into the Harper Avery Foundation gala if only I don't give myself away by tripping over my own feet, eating any or all of the canapés on offer or running into an Avery family member of either gender.

That's step one.

Step two is running into an Avery family member of the male gender, specifically an Avery family member of the male gender who lives in Seattle, specifically an Avery family member of the male gender who I've always loved, always, who I've never not been in love with (and screw what I said to him about retroactive continuity that one time). I have always loved him, and I_ will _always love him, and there's nothing he can do about it.

Then comes step three, which is the hard part. Step three involves opening my mouth and words coming out.

(Step three is another reason I should steer clear of the canapés).

And even if step two doesn't pan out for some reason, owing to large volumes of people or Jackson being kept behind a velvet rope or hidden in an alcove or something, I'll initiate step two, plan B, in which I walk right up to Catherine Avery and offer her one of an undisclosed number of pigs I named after Jackson, plus nine of his porkiest brothers, in exchange for her son. I'll carry him off over my shoulder if I have to. I'll go full Rambo on him.

Basically, I'll do whatever it takes, because yes, Universe, I have gotten your message, and I do see we belong together, and he has no reason to say uncle, so I'm the one who has to give him my piece, because not everyone likes peanut butter cup ice cream.

That makes sense, right?

Right?

I put up my hair. I curl it first, and then I put it up, and then I put on my makeup. I go a few shades redder with my lipstick because I want to be a few shades braver, like Elizabeth Taylor, and I go a few shades darker with my eyeliner because I want to be a few shades more menacing, like Callie, and then I put on my green dress and the shoes that go with it and a necklace which doesn't, but looks pretty all the same. I put on deodorant. I put on perfume. I put my keys and my phone and my most exotic condom in my clutch (for luck), and I walk out of my smoke-free bedroom into my fire-free living room, and my heels tap on the burn-free floor, and I open my front door.

The first thing I see is the gun. I sort of smell it before I see it, because it has this strong metallic smell, and then the gun itself comes into focus, and it's very easy to focus on, considering it's pointing right between my eyes.

"My, aren't you a picture." His voice is less gravelly than it sounded over the phone, and I recognise his face from his photo in the witness file. He knows where I live, of course, because it was him who put the petrol bomb through my mail slot and sprayed _O'MURDERER_ on my door. "If you wouldn't mind coming with me, Miss."

"Where are we going?"

I want to be brave.

I want to be scary.

I want to be a lot of things, but there's a man pointing a gun at my head, and he's committed at least three murders, and I outed him in the press.

Gary Clark smiles, but his eyes are dead: wide and flat and blue, like he described George's to me.

"We're going to take a ride."

I, April Kepner, left a cop and someone whose nickname is the Bone Breaker at the bar, but only after I'd left Casa Cop, but only after my cop boyfriend left me.

Oh my Jesus.


	19. Tidal Wave

**19. Tidal Wave**

_**April**_

Well, this is ironic.

Actually, it's not. It's not even the teeniest-tiniest bit ironic. I keep telling myself it's ironic (because I thought I might die of embarrassment tonight, when I may actually just die, period) to stop myself screaming. I screamed when Gary Clark wrapped his cold hand around my arm, and he pressed the gun to my forehead to stop me doing it again.

The barrel was colder.

The only silver lining to the very, _very_ large cloud of my impending death is that my deodorant is working. I don't know where all the moisture in my body has gone, because my eyes are dry. My throat is dry. The skin under my arms and across my forehead is dry. You'd think I'd be crying, or sweating, or both.

Maybe that's what's ironic?

No.

No, I'll tell you what's ironic. What's ironic is that I outed a man for murder and was naïve enough to think he'd hand himself in. What's ironic is I didn't for one second suspect that someone I believed capable of killing innocent people would try to burn me alive in my own apartment. What's ironic is I _convinced_ myself I had everything sewn up, all the loose ends tied off, the cat in the bag and the bag in the river (I really hope he doesn't dump me in the bay after he kills me – one, it'll destroy any trace evidence, and two, it's not fair to expect the marine life to deal with the toxins created by my decomposing corpse). What's ironic is I moved back into my scene-of-a-crime apartment in my building with no doorman. What's ironic is I was so high and mighty about not visiting Reed again, about moving on with my life, and now I'm most likely going to end up moving in with her.

Gary Clark drives with one hand on the wheel and the other levelling the gun at my lap. I know, since I was trained to know, that the best place he could shoot me would be the hand or foot. I'd never play piano again (not that I do now), but I would live. If he shoots me in the head or the heart, I'll die quickly. If he shoots me in the stomach or the leg, it'll take a little longer. I'm trying to brace myself for the bullet, whenever and wherever it comes, but how can you prepare than done. This is not how tonight was supposed to go.

Tonight was not supposed to be the night I die.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Home."

"Home? Where's home?"

"Your home and mine are the same," he says, and I have no idea what he means by that – no idea, that is, until we pull up outside the headquarters of the Seattle Police Department (_Service, Pride, Dedication_). My head swims. There are bodies in that building, souls, husbands, fathers, daughters, sisters…my heart is pounding, for me and for them.

"Mr Clark?" I venture. I spent the ride touching the tip of each finger on my right hand to the tip of each finger on my left hand, but I'm shaking so hard I kept missing, tapping empty air instead of skin. "What are we doing here?"

Gary Clark has such an ordinary face. His features are easily forgettable, and his touch is impersonal, light. He leans towards me, and the gun moves too, but all he does is lift a strand of hair off my cheek. I refuse to breathe, refuse to jump, refuse to react in any other way than to keep my eyes fixed on his ordinary face. I jump when Jackson touches me, and Gary Clark does not get to have that. I won't give it to him.

"Get out of the car. Slowly."

I've never been able to run in heels (and let's not forget he has a gun), so I do as I'm told. He comes around to my side and pushes the gun into the small of my back, covering it up with a guiding gesture. He's not wearing any cologne, so even his scent is nondescript. That's funny, because everything else is in such sharp focus that I can smell the water droplets in the air, hear the sizzling of the stars. Isn't that the craziest thing? The world around me is in high definition, and all because it might end soon. I take a second to appreciate my dress, because it softens the sensation of the gun against my spine, and what more can a girl ask of her formalwear? It won't protect me, but it was worth the price I paid. It was worth it for that little bit of horror it's saving me from.

"Here's what we're going to do." His breath has a faint hint of menthol. "We're going to walk straight across the lot and in through the double doors, and then we're going to head straight up to the Chief's office. Do you understand?"

I nod.

"That's good, Miss Kepner. That's very good."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to kill cops," he says simply.

As if life and death, and the holes left by life and death, could ever be simple.

_**~#~**_

_**Mark**_

Well, this is ironic.

Mark Sloan does not write reports (seriously, what would Avery do all day if I wrote my own reports? Stare at himself in reflective surfaces?) but tonight, Mark Sloan thought, 'why not give the kid a night off, let him wake up tomorrow with a hangover and a hickey from his third cousin'. Mark Sloan is therefore not the man he believed himself to be. He (I, me, first person singular) is a first degree moron.

Who just got shot.

Some asshole just shot me. I came up to Hunt's office to use the printer, and some asshole shot me in the gut. Jesus Christ, it hurts. It hurts so much I pass out, but not for nearly long enough. When I open my eyes, April Kepner is kneeling on the floor beside me (she was by the door a second ago, which is how I know I wasn't out for nearly long enough). I'll be honest, she wouldn't be my pick for the role of 'civilian who overcomes shortcomings to save life of debonair police officer', but she's the one putting pressure on the wound, which feels like she's pouring battery acid on it, but it's better than nothing. She's not crying, which is better than nothing. I never know what to do when women start crying (unless it's Callie. Or Lexie. Or occasionally Robbins).

"Mark Sloan," she says.

"Hey there, April Kepner."

"Don't die, please." She lifts my head into her lap, and it hurts worse the second time she lays her hands on me.

"Are you kidding me? Lexie's waiting for me." Oh, Lexie. Lexie, Lexie, Lexie. Lex. I wish someone had told me, maybe in a creepy Freudian dream involving Mrs Shepherd or whoever, that my number would be up today. I would've married you before you could start up about maturity versus age, before you could get that little crease between your eyebrows. I would've seen my kid. Christ, I would've seen Torres, and told her exactly what I'd do to her if she didn't take good care of our kid (not that I'd have to tell her anything, because she's a better parent to Sofia than I'll ever be). "She's cooking with –" What was it? "Tarragon. She's cooking me dinner with tarragon, because she thinks it make her look like she knows how to cook. Just think how mad she'd be if I went and died on her, if I went and died with my head in the lap of another woman?"

"She'd be _super_ mad at you." April Kepner has a voice like a Disney character, which would drive me crazy if I had to hear it every day, but which some people seem to like. Her assets aren't substantial, but I'm really only noticing them at all because she appears to be wearing a ballgown to a shootout.

"Kepner?"

"Yes?"

"Who shot me?"

"Gary Clark, former police officer. I think – I mean, he's pretty much confirmed it by this point – he's a cop killer. He likes to shoot cops. He's the one who shot Alex Karev." Her eyes are huge, mostly green, some gold. She's no Lexie, could never be a Lexie (who could?) but I see it, sort of. She creeps up on you, this girl.

She's talking again.

"I don't mean to be rude, especially since you're being such a trooper…"

"But?"

"But I'm really glad it's you here, and not Jackson."

"Me too, kid." Cards on the table, I'd rather not have been shot, and I'd rather not know Clark has most likely gone somewhere to call in all available officers to shoot them too, and I wish Kepner was free and clear, because she won't run. She'll say she can't can't leave me here like this, and honestly, I don't mind that part so much. I don't want to be alone. "Me too."

She breathes out, runs her free hand over my hair. It's nice. It's nothing compared to the torture of a bullet that didn't make it through my body and so had to spend its energy rupturing as many of my organs as it could, but it's nice. Soothing.

"I really did pee my pants this time."

_This time_?

"That's okay." Everything's getting foggy, and the only thing I feel on hearing that a grown woman has wet her pants is sympathy, so things must be bad. Poor kid. Poor, messed up kid, with her dead friends, with her bizarro talent for playing the spoons and being honey for murder-y flies. "Sofia does it all the time."

_**~#~**_

_**Jo**_

I never thought this would happen to me.

I mean, I knew it _could_ happen, theoretically (but everything that's ever not happened could happen theoretically, like those millions of black holes which didn't open when they flipped the switch on the big hadron thingy in Europe), but I never thought it _would_ happen. Good thing don't happen to me. Guys hit me, girls hate me, blah blah blah, Jo's life sucks.

Jo's life doesn't suck anymore. Happy days are here again.

Alex is here again.

"I love you," I tell him, and I mean it (and I love him even more when his tongue flicks out, and out of nowhere fireworks go off in my brain like it's the Fourth of July).

"You're an idiot."

"Alex." I grab the back of his head and run my fingers through the short hair there, just barely digging my nails into his scalp (he likes that). "It's okay. I'm not being an ass anymore, so you can tell me you love me too." Should I buy Kepner a card or something? What would it even say? _Thanks for the Sex Assist_? Imagine if she actually _had_ assisted, gross (except she's April, so she'd probably assist with fluffy white bathrobes and bottled water, which would actually be majorly helpful). Where was I?

Alex's head between my thighs, score.

He grins. God, he's cute. He's all pouty mouth and stubborn chin and he doesn't shave enough, but even that wouldn't have done it for me if he didn't have the biggest heart in the world. I've never gone in for true love and unicorns and all that girlie crap before, but my heart must have grown since we met, because at first it was only big enough for like, and now it's big enough for love, for this house to be my house, for us to have sex on top of the old-fashioned washer/drier at least once before I die, for me to die in bed next to Alex and scare the shit out of him when he wakes up.

"I love you too."

"Well thank you, good sir."

"You're still an idiot."

Before I can grab a pillow and hit him, his phone starts playing the stupid movie music he set as his ringer when the Chief calls. Chief Hunt calls us ordinary folk mybe once a year, so it does justify cheesy music, but what he's calling about had better be worth breaking a streak of seriously awesome orgasms (I swear to God, I levitated).

It doesn't take loving Alex to pinpoint the exact moment when he closes up like a clam. It can't have gotten colder, but I have to pull the sheet up to my chest, and sit up, and mouth, 'what's going on?' at him, over and over. It sounds like he's answering questions, and when he hangs up, he gets straight up and picks up his gun before even picks up his pants.

It can't have gotten colder, but that leaves me cold.

"What's going on? Alex, talk to me."

He shakes his head.

"Alex!"

"Clark, Gary Clark, the guy April figured out was shooting cops?" He won't look at me. I don't think he wants me to see his face. "He's got her. He's got her at the station, and he's shot someone, and she might be shot too, and Hunt wants us to get over there, all of us, everyone who knows her. This is _crap_!" His fist slams into the wall, and the house shakes. "She was here! She was fine!

And I made her move out so I could have orgasms that made me feel like I levitated.

I did this.

"Someone should call Avery."

"Hunt said not to."

"Alex!"

He finally turns around. He looks so twisted and so tormented and I'd do anything to make that go away, but what can I do? I'm not a marksman or a hostage negotiator, and no matter what I _do_ do, April Kepner could still go away and not come back.

_April Kepner could still go away and not come back_.

"She's scared!" I yell at him. I am too. "She's scared and maybe she's shot, and if it was me who was scared and maybe shot, I'd want you! I'd want someone to call you so you could tell me it was going to be alright, even if nothing was going to be alright ever again. I'm going to call Avery, Alex. I have to. She's his best friend, and he loves her, and even if she was pro-Palestine and he was all for Israel and they were fighting about something that _meant_ something, they still need each other. She needs him there, he's going to need to be there. He has to be there, Alex."

Alex bites down hard on his lip, then turns back around and tosses me a shirt. "Get some clothes on. Do it fast."

"Okay."

"Wilson?"

"What?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

_**~#~**_

**Jackson**

I never thought this would happen to me.

Up to a certain point in my life, nothing had happened to me (obviously the important stuff had happened, like being born and my dad leaving and losing it and graduation – but nothing that had happened slowed me down for more than a minute. She was what started it, what made things happen for me, and I'm not just saying that because she's – _don_'_t_ _think about it_, _just __drive_,_ just put your foot down_ – she was what started it, and all because she could shoot better than me. In all the ways that matter, she's always been better than me. She sucks at relationships – at the I-do-you, you-do-me, let's live in each other's pockets kind you see at the movies – and she sucks at seeing herself as she is: small, and fragile, and strong all the same. I know she can look after herself, but if he's hurt her, I'll kill him. That's my job. That's what I'm wired to do.

My mom all but beat it into me that a woman can do everything a man can, but this is primal. This goes all the way back to the time of flag planting and those other overly long metaphors April likes to use, and further. It goes back to the time of ownership, and screw what anyone else has to say about it, she's mine. She's mine, and I'm hers. I screwed up when I left her in the parking lot, I screwed up when I left her with Alex, I screw up every time I leave her. I'm good at things. I've always been good at things. I have to be good at taking care of her, because April and her tiny fists are no good at up close and personal (I know, she's tried) and they're in a room with a murderer, and – _shit_, _shit_, _shit_. I can't keep my hands steady.

The Jeep whines, and other than putting the pedal to the floor, I've forgotten how to drive. It's meant to be muscle memory, impossible to forget, and I'm good at things, but I'm no good at anything right now. I was no good with feelings when the end of the world equalled no me and no April, and now it's just no April, and I can't – _fuck_, _fuck_, _fuck_. I can't. I can't say it, I can't think it, I just need her. I need stupid things like this green shirt she has with birds on it, and the quart of milk and four sweeteners she adds to every cup of coffee she ever drinks, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but Charles and Reed and Alex have nothing on this. I need to have her, even just to touch her, even for a second, but preferably for so long we may as well do the whole damn – _bang_, _bang_, _bang_.

(That's the sound it makes when I hit my head on the dash).

I've pulled up, and I'm half on and half off the sidewalk, and there are people everywhere, and this is all I get. I get to hit my head on the dashboard as many times as it takes to beat _I-love-her-I-love-her-I-love-her_ out, and then I'm going to get out of the car, and I'm going to find the Chief.

But I do love her.

It doesn't feel like it's supposed to, not soft or sweet or easy. It's hot and red, and it made me be an asshole when I didn't want to be, and now it's making me a mess when I don't have time to be. Lexie never made me hit my head on things. Lexie never wet-hair-wet-skin-wet-pink-lip-ed me into being her first, or wrapped her arms around me like she was a human backpack, or got herself into hostage situations. She was never so stubborn, or so irritating, or so slippery when her back was up against the tiles in her bathroom and her arms were up above her head.

I love her, and she could die.

I get out of the car.

"Chief?"

Hunt's face is raw, like he's been rubbing it. "Avery?" He sucks in air through his teeth, then puffs it back out. He's wearing street clothes, and I'm wearing a tux, and neither of us is in any way prepared for this. "My orders were no one was to contact you. I said you weren't to be informed until I had things under control, I can't – do you realise how difficult it makes things for me, you being here?"

"Is she alive? Is she shot? Did he shoot her? Has anybody spoken to her, have you –"

_Shit_, _shit_, _shit_, I still can't keep my hands steady.

"Avery!" In my periphery I see another car, another two people: Alex and Wilson. "Clark made one call from my outer office. He told me he'd shot an officer and that he 'had' April, but he didn't say – Avery! Avery, where the hell do you think you're –"

She's alive.

She's alive, still alive and up in Hunt's office, along with somebody who can only be dead or dying and a guy with a gun who hasn't made any demands. What does that mean? What does he want if he doesn't want her?

_Fuck_, _fuck_, _fuck_.

_**~#~**_

_**April**_

Mark Sloan has stopped moving. He's stopped moving, and I don't know what to do. God, Jesus, tell me what to do. I can't do this. I can't let him die, but I can't stop him dying. I can't do this. I had a wrap in my clutch, one of those really light ones you can fold super small, and I tied it as tightly as I could around him, but he's stopped moving, and his heart feels slow. It doesn't beat, it ticks – I could use it to mark time if I had any idea what time it was. How long have I been here?

How long do I have left?

"Why won't you stop looking at me?"

Gary Clark still has his gun pointed at me, and all he's been doing for the past I-don't-know-how-long is staring and staring at me.

"You used to look like you wanted to die." His voice is getting hoarse, and so is mine. There's no water in this room, and it feels like there's no air either. "Why don't you look like that anymore?"

"I dyed my hair." I curled it and fussed with it and made it pretty tonight, but that's all fallen apart. This whole night has fallen apart. "I got a new job. I sat at a bar every night because I didn't want to be alone – _we_, we sat at the bar. You're right, I did want to die. I didn't want to die to die, I just…I thought I deserved to be with them, to have you do to me what you did to them." I'm not afraid of dying. I don't welcome it, but I'm not afraid anymore. If this ordinary man with his ordinary face kills me, he'll still be ordinary, anonymous, less. It won't make him more if he kills me. "But he loved her, and they were together at the end, and I think that's how it was supposed to be. There were never really four of us. I kept kidding myself because I didn't…we were always two and two. Always."

"You and who?"

"Me and – Jackson?"

I'm hallucinating. I have to be hallucinating. He's at the Harper Avery Foundation gala, safe, angry, so mad with me that he'd never come down here and – Alex. Alex is behind him, with his gun out, but Jackson has nothing. He's standing in the doorway with his palms up, wearing a tuxedo like the most poorly prepared James Bond in the history of ever. Clark grabs me and presses the gun to my temple again, ice cold, smelling of death, and I can't keep hold of Mark's head, but it's okay, because Jackson is here, and Jackson – Jackson, and his electric green eyes, and his open hands – is all I see.

"I love you," I tell him. I fought to keep it in, but letting it out is as easy as breathing. "Present tense."

He sees right through me, I can see him doing it. "I love you, April," he replies. "I love everything about you."

Now Owen is behind Alex, and the man behind me is coiled like a spring. He's like a jack-in-the-box, and any minute the lid is going to pop open, and the bullets are going to fly. They won't shoot him, risk me, be anything less than the few good, brave men they absolutely are, of that I'm one hundred percent sure. I love them all, in their way, but I love him most.

I smile.

He smiles.

"I hope you like the dress," I say, and jerk my head back. There's a crack, and Gary Clark yells, splutters, snorts. His nose is broken, and his blood flows into my hair, and the world spins, but I go for the hand with the gun. I slam it against the floor, over and over, and his other arm tightens around my neck, squeezing. I can't breathe, and his fingers won't open, and everything is black or green. I turn into him. I have to. I turn into him, and there's a crash of thunder louder than anything I've ever heard, except it's not thunder, and I could be bleeding or dying or both, but I can't care. I can't think. I can't breathe. I can't care, because I have to – _I_ have to, me – grab him by the ears, and bounce his head up and down, banging it into the nothing-coloured carpet until the room shakes, dyed red as well as black, as well as green. Someone calls my name, two someones, but they're like a badly tuned radio, and I can't hear them properly over the echoes of the not thunder. He still won't let go. He still won't let me go. He did what he did, to Charles and Reed, to Mark and Alex, to others, and he won't let me go. I can stop him. I can make it stop. I can, me, Ducky, Ugly Duckling, the one who thinks too much and worries too much and talks too herself too much, the one no one will ever believe was the one to make it stop.

"April, stop!"

_No_.

"Kepner, he's down!"

_No_.

"April!"

_No_, _no_, _no_.

"Stand down, Officer." This voice is louder, and firmer. I recognise the words. Those are the words I was trained to recognise, no matter what. Those are the words I respond to, and although the arms that go around me don't fit the words, or the rage, or the shame, or the hate that's running through me, red and black and green, the hate that's running my body and my brain, I don't fight those arms. I did my job. I'm a police officer – I was, I am, can't stop being a cop no matter how hard I try – and I did my job. I protected. I served.

I want to go home.

The arms lift me off Gary Clark, and I close my eyes. Owen Hunt carries me away from the two men on the floor, and the two men at the door move in to pick up where I left off.

_**~#~**_

_**Meredith**_

Cristina asks me to go with her, so I go. We sit on the floor, because there's no couch in this apartment, and wait until Owen brings her in. Because there's no couch in this apartment, he sets her on her feet, and she wobbles in a pretty pair of heels, but she stands. She's splotched all over with blood, and something is wrong with her eyes, but April Kepner is still standing.

"I don't…" Her voice is so small. She tugs at the front of her dress. "I don't think I can take this off."

I exchange a glance with Cristina, whose face is smooth. It's because she has too much respect for April to show her pity, not because she doesn't care.

"We can do that."

Owen slips out, and this apartment with no couch becomes a quiet place, just for us, just because we've seen horror and blood and we know. We take off her dress and we put her in the tub with her Spanx still on, and shower her off, and then I get in one side of the bed, and Cristina gets in the other, and even though it's not us, not either of us, not something we'd ever do for anyone under normal circumstances, we silently take her hands.

Mark is alive. He was playing dead, hoping April would make a break for it.

Gary Clark is dead, actually dead, and vengeance is hers whether she wants it or not.

"Alex shot him," I murmur, as soon as I'm sure she's asleep. "Alex shot him after Owen took her out of the room. The report will show that Alex shot him, and any other trauma was secondary to Alex shooting him."

"Alex shot him." She nods. "So Kepner's sort of a badass now."

"Kepner is definitely a badass now."

"Owen put a call in to the DA while the paramedics were checking her over. He's agreed to take everything Clark say tonight as a deathbed confession. It's admissible in court."

"So George O'Malley is sort of a free man."

"If the DA comes through."

"It's over." April's fingers clasp mine reflexively, like Bailey's do. When we're done here, I'm going home to him, and to Derek, and to Zola. Cristina may be my person, but they're my family, and they sleep one or two to a bed and wear clothes that don't have bloodstains on them. "It's so over."

Finally.

It's finally time to give up the ghosts.


	20. Leave Out All The Rest

**20. Leave Out All The Rest**

Alex tells me he shot Gary Clark to save Owen the paperwork that always goes hand-in-hand with a civilian homicide, but I know better – he did it for me, so I could never really be sure if I killed Gary Clark (because it's much, much harder to beat yourself up about something you can never really be sure of).

I slept for thirty six hours straight, and when I woke up, Meredith and Cristina were gone. In their place was Callie, frying bacon, and Arizona, making cinnamon toast, and she didn't say anything. She just turned, and looked, and then her face crumpled up like a napkin, and she came around the sort of void in the floor where the couch used to be and started crying and touching my face and my arms and the collar of my pyjama top like she wasn't convinced I was real. I didn't say anything either. I had no more mad left for her, or for anyone else.

Instead, I spoke to Callie.

"Will you take me church?"

It took slightly longer than I anticipated, but I'm here: here, at the church dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, patron of police officers. I took my Spanx off (finally), and I washed my hair, and I put on a dress with polka dots on it. I won't be properly clean, though, until He gives me His stamp of approval.

I linger after the service, watching Matthew shake hands and accept compliments from old ladies. He's in the doorway, and I'm in the shadow of the porch, so he's in light and I'm in darkness. I guess that's apt, considering he's all pure and virginal and pastor-y, whereas my most recent act was revenging upon mine enemy, or however the Bible would phrase it. The silence is deafening after he closes the big wooden doors, but he only shuts up shop after waving goodbye to his biggest fangirl as she dodders to her car.

The dust motes swirling in the spotty sunshine suddenly disappear.

"You were on the news last night."

"I was?"

"You were." His smile is still sweet, but it comes to his lips more slowly than it did before. "I prayed for you."

"Thank you."

"April, I –"

"Matthew, I –"

He laughs. I laugh. It's awkward, but we've broken the back of this thing now, broken the ice. "I think we should skip past the 'I'm sorry's and the 'I forgive you's and whatever else we were both planning to say – unless you weren't planning on saying that?" His brown eyes go wide. He's still cute, still clean-cut, still no good for me. What I need is someone who leads me (by the nose if necessary) to Future April, who's got it all figured out. Idealistic April belongs back home, and I kind of wish I could set her and Matthew up (except she's me, and I'm getting into multiple personality territory, and I may have beaten someone to death the other night in addition to peeing my pants, so I don't want to get any closer to crazy than I have to).

"I was planning on saying that," I confess, and he smiles properly, broadly, beams at me. "But I also have a favour to ask, which I was hoping, because I was on the news last night and everything, you'd do for me without asking too many questions about it why I'm asking."

"Name it."

There are some firsts you remember, and some firsts you can't help but remember (but I'm doing my best not to think about those right now, partly because I'm in a church, and partly because things were said in the heat of the majorly dramatic moment that maybe it's not okay to hold someone to thirty six hours later). I have no memories of this first, most likely because I can't have been more than a few weeks old when it happened. I was small enough to be held the first time, but I'm not anymore, so I kneel instead. I close my eyes, the better to take it all in, so I feel rather than see Matthew's thumb when it brushes over my forehead, the water passing from him to me, running down between my eyebrows, along my nose, over my lips.

"I baptise you, April Kepner." And it starts as heat in my face, then heat in my chest. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Then it's all of me, and all of him, and all the benches and high windows and bright spots of light on the floor. Then I'm clean, properly clean, as the weight of that last death is lifted from my shoulders. He lifts it. He takes away the sin Alex's actions means I'll never really be sure I committed, reminds me that I lived for a reason. I lived. I live. It's what I do, live. You can huff and puff and try to burn my house down, but His bet is on me.

What I actually do, though (as in, for a living, because as big a fan as I am of doing good for goodness' sake, I have a couch to replace and new business cards to get printed and possibly thank you cards to send), is solve crimes (which, as I might have mentioned, is deadly difficult, and involves lots of coffee and manila files and, with any luck, a nice fat check to cash).

So I have a case to close, Sunday or no Sunday – _sorry about the whole day of rest thing_, _God_, _but I'm guessing jobs were much more physically demanding way back when._ _Nowadays_,_ there_'_s only so much resting you can do without getting all grumpus-y and lethargic and ruining the rest of the week_ – but first, I have to get a pie, because pie makes everything better (even, here's hoping, being shot in the stomach; I would totally bake a pie myself, except I have no idea if Callie and Arizona are still in my apartment, and I really don't want to get into that and risk spoiling my baked goods).

Mark Sloan seems like a derby pie man.

_**~#~**_

Lexie definitely hasn't slept for thirty six hours straight. It doesn't look like she's even gotten up from the visitor's chair (there's a navy blue wash bag and a full flask of coffee by her foot, which kind of breaks my heart, because not even for coffee was she willing to bend down and risk breaking the connection between her and Mark, his hand in hers. I linger in the doorway, the pie box in one hand, a bunch of sunflowers in the other. I'm not sure whether you're supposed to buy alpha male types flowers, even if when they're hurt, but sunflowers are bright and cheerful and I figured we could all do with some bright and cheerful.

I rap my knuckles on the open door. "Knock knock."

"April." No, Lexie _definitely_ hasn't slept for thirty six hours straight. The whites of her eyes are pink, and the tip of her nose is red. She could almost be sick herself (and she is, just not in the way that gets you admitted to hospital). "How are you? I would've called, but…" She skims her free hand back through her hair, which is duller and flatter than usual. "Meredith thought it would be better to wait until you came by. She said calling might be too much pressure, and you needed to be focusing on yourself, not worrying about Mark."

"I focused. I underwent a holy rite with my ex-boyfriend. I'm done focusing." This is Alex's old room, I realise. There must be a standing reservation in the name of the Seattle Police Department. "So I'm here to worry with pie – I mean, I'm here to worry, but I brought pie. Pie won't be worrying with me – unless it wants to, not that pies want to do anything. Ever."

Apparently, baptism doesn't come with a complimentary personality transplant. I'm therefore deciding to try to own my inability to form a sentence without excusing, backtracking, or explaining myself. I have no idea how I'm going to own it, but I'm going to give it a shot (and I must _not_ use the word 'shot' in front of Lexie, in case she thinks I'm being flip, or I've forgotten her boyfriend had to have a bullet taken out of him which could've easily had to be taken out of me).

Shot.

_Shot_.

I thrust the sunflowers at her. "How's he doing?"

"Why are you talking to the management when the talent's right here?"

Lexie grins, and I whirl, and Mark Sloan smiles his roguish smile, which fills me with a mixture of irritation and relief. He puts his unoccupied arm behind his head and winks. "They took the bullet out, matching striations and all." Which is, apparently, something to be smug about. "And they had to take my spleen out too, but who needs a spleen? I don't need a spleen, Lex." He squeezes her hand. "Don't you worry. I'm twice the man with no spleen that Derek is with one." She rolls her eyes. Something passes between them, something wonderful that doesn't require words, and then Mark turns his attention back to me. "You did me proud in there, Kepner. You kept a cool head under fire."

"It wasn't really me who was under fire." I mean, I still have a spleen.

"Yeah, it was." The way he says it is part pushy, part sincere, and I wonder if Sofia will be talking like that in a few years' time. "It was you who got taken, you who had to stay in control and not panic. It was you who finally neutralised the threat."

"Alex shot him," I tell him, too casually. I wince, then try to act like I didn't.

"So he did." His fingers flex in Lexie's, but other than that, he doesn't give any hint he's not buying what I'm selling. "But you ensured it didn't become a siege, and you didn't let yourself be a victim this time. A little while ago, this would've been all about you, about what happened to you, about what it did to you, and I'm not saying that to chastise you: I'm saying it because I want you to know how much you've grown, and that people have noticed – even the people you'd least expect."

Mark glances back to his girlfriend, and I glance away, and we silently agree to give each other a minute. We'll relax back into sort of antagonism soon enough, but it's going to take some time. You don't go through something like that and go straight back to banter, to the non-relationship which exists between a P.I. and the significant other of somebody she only sees now and then (who's also the father of her friendly neighbourhood bartender and paediatrician's baby, as well as the boss of her significant other, a person who's currently not half so significant as he is very, very other).

While we're having a minute, I allow myself to feel that otherness, the hole in my heart I can live with but which is going to make breathing a little more difficult. I love Jackson, and Jackson loves me, but 'I love you' is no substitute for 'I'm sorry'. Doubting that he meant is like doubting that _I_ meant it, so I can't do that, but I can doubt other things. I can doubt he's forgiven me, that his logical brain has been overruled by his good heart. I can doubt he wants to be with me, supported by the evidence of precisely no calls, no texts, no emails (yes, I checked my email, I'm grasping at straws here), and no visits in the past thirty six hours. I can doubt love is enough, because he wasn't the one to carry me home or clean me up. Could he not or _would_ he not be the one to wash the blood off me this time?

Doubting love is enough works for me. Work and pain and time are usually enough, as is money, but love – unless it's serious business love, like Jesus-getting-crucified-to-save-everybody love – only moves mountains in our minds, or in movies with Ryan Gosling, or Ryan Reynolds, or Ryan Kwanten (there's something about the name Ryan…)

"April!"

"Huh?"

I guess the minute is up.

"What's in this pie?"

"Well, there's semisweet chocolate, pecans, bourbon…"

But then, there are more important things in life than having someone ('someone' makes it sound like it could be anyone, but I mean Jackson and only Jackson, which sucks for me) to fill the hole in my heart and my empty fridge. I'm having trouble coming up with any right this moment, but…but then I watch Lexie watch Mark, and I have to come clean, even just to myself: there's nothing in life more important than this.

Crap.

_**~#~**_

"Hello?"

Since I picked up the phone and called Theodora Altman's number – her home number, which I got from a not entirely legal database search – I was expecting to hear Theodora Altman, warden, and I didn't expect she'd answer with 'hello' so much as 'yes' or 'go for Altman' or 'Eagle Three, standing by'. What I wasn't expecting was a guy's voice (a warm, friendly-sounding guy's voice, but a guy's voice nonetheless).

"Hi," I reply shyly, although I have no idea what I have to be shy about. "My name is April Kepner? I'm a private investigator?" _Am I asking him or telling him_? "I'm trying to get in contact with Ms Altman. She's the warden responsible for one of my clients."

"One second." There's something sizzling in the background. He really does sound friendly, whoever he is. "Sorry." The line crackles as the phone gets moved, most likely tucked under his cheek while he deals with whatever's on the stove. "I just have to flip the fish…there we go. Teddy!" He yells. "Phone!"

Teddy?

"Well, it was nice talking to you, April Kepner, private investigator," says the guy. "I'm Henry Burton, husband. Get Teddy to invite you to dinner sometime."

"Thanks, it was –"

"How did you get my number?" I can hear Henry chuckling in the background. She must've snatched the phone before he could 'get Teddy to dinner sometime' all her credibility away. "Uh…sorry." Theodora Altman, hereafter known as Teddy, uses a very different voice at home to the one she does at work. "It's great to hear from you, Ms Kepner, honestly, I'm just not sure whether I'm entirely comfortable with hearing from you at home on a Sunday." She goes quiet, and I can hear the fish frying in the background again. "But I did see what happened to you on the news, so…" So she forgives my trespasses? "You won't want to talk about that."

"I will," I counter. "I do want to talk about that, about how it relates to George O'Malley."

"Oh." It's hard to tell over the phone, but she seems to relax slightly. "After the events in Owen Hunt's office, I imagine his lawyers are planning to skip a retrial and go for a full exoneration. It'll be tricky without any DNA evidence, but the procedure on my end is –"

We discuss George for half an hour or forty minutes (it doesn't matter, according to Henry, who keeps up a running commentary throughout, because he's still got to cook the potatoes and green beans), and I type out an email to Meredith because there's a lot of protocol I don't understand – I'm here for the happily-ever-after-because-your-wife-is-faithful-to-you part of the process, not for all the legislation that makes happily ever after possible. I write another email after I've sent the first one, and CC in Cristina, and I attempt to say thank you without being too sappy or doing anything which would turn them off. I agonise over it for three times the time I was on the phone with Teddy, and by dinnertime, all I have to say is honestly all there is to say:

_Thank you_.

So that's all I send.

What I get in return (well, not technically in return, because it's not from either of them, but it is the next thing to land in my inbox – I guess what I'm going for is 'what I get in return from the universe') is super-duper strange. It's a receipt from the furniture store where I bought my recently deceased couch, and that isn't even the super-duper-ly strangest part. The strangest part is that the item description is blacked out, and so is the cost. The only section that hasn't been censored reads, _Y__our item has now been delivered by one of our team_,_ thank you for choosing Home & Garden for your shooping needs. _What the hell is going on?

More importantly, what the hell is waiting for me in my apartment?

It's not Callie and Arizona. I drop into the bar on my way home, and they both take the fifth when I mention the Great Furniture Mystery. Arizona can speak to me now, but she's lost the ability to meet my eyes, which is one step forward and two steps back. She does stand next to me, though, as I drink the one drink Callie insists I drink, and she presses her shoulder against mine rather than reaching for my hand. I think this is harder on her than it is on me, since I was the one who got cleansed this morning and feel about as much anger towards the world in general and her in particular as a newborn baby. I am hungry, though, so it is just one drink before I get up and go (after complimenting Callie on her maple bacon martini, of course).

I take the stairs from my lobby rather than the elevator, sort of because I did just eat candied bacon, and sort of because it gives me more time to try to figure out what I could've bought and forgotten about. I'm drawing a blank. It's been a while since I've even visited my own apartment, let alone furnished it (not counting my grand attempt at a grand romantic gesture). It's probably since…okay, super-duper-ly strang_er_. I was remembering the night of the petrol bomb and the marinara, and now I can smell it (the marinara, that is, not the petrol). I smell that saucy, smoky aroma that would've been tomato-based nirvana if it hadn't burned to death along with one of my best pans.

Either excellnt olfactory recall is my new superpower, or someone's making dinner in my apartment (and like I said before, 'someone' means Jackson).

I walk through the stairwell door like it isn't even there. I lay my palm on the newly painted wood of my front door, and it eases open without even a the tiniest of squeaks, which means there's no 'someone' about it. I only ever gave one person a key, and only one person would ever leave the door ajar so I could smell sauce cooking, calling me home.

The hole in my heart is making breathing very, very difficult.

There used to be a void in the centre of the room, but it's not there anymore. In its place is the most glossy, the most gorgeous, the most practically edible…it's a three-seater, anyway, and it's too big for the space it occupies, and it's overwhelming. I never thought furniture would ever have such a profound effect on me, but it's the significance – the 'significant' that's supposed to go with the 'other' – that makes me stop in the doorway and wrap my arms around myself and shake my head because this is all too much, much too much. There was a space, an emptiness, an absence, and it's been filled by a couch and a person, and that person is hovering in the kitchen doorway, mirroring me, the way he always mirrors me. All I can see of him around the couch is overly expensive sneakers, and that's about all I can manage for the moment.

"You bought me a couch."

"I bought you a couch."

"I didn't ask you to buy me a couch."

"I know."

"Not that I'm not grateful for the couch." I glance up, chicken out, glance back down at the chocolate-coloured leather. It's less pretty than the shade of ivory I chose, but possibly more practical (that's not why I'm staring at the couch, though, and I know it, and he knows it, which means everyone in the room knows it, so there's no point in pretending, but I'm going to go ahead and pretend anyway). "So over the years, you've bought me groceries, you've bought me dinner, and we even went Dutch on my flu shot that time."

"I remember." He's a little husky, and I can just feel him looking at me, like the look is soaking into my skin like butter into hot bread (there's really no point in pretending anymore, is there? I am hot bread. I am _so_ hot bread).

(And by hot bread, I mean toast. Obviously).

"What does this mean?"

"Sandbox rules." Okay, he's more than a little husky. He's speaking in this low, insistent way which makes me worry what he's going to say next. It makes my chest hurt, and my eyes hot, and it's only been a day and a half since I almost died and actually told him how I feel, so I'm trying not to be ashamed of my flushed cheeks. I get to freak out over this. "You get your couch, I get my day in court." This is Jackson. All I have to do is focus on the fact that this is Jackson, and I've known him forever, and I won't spin out about the significance of significant furniture purchases and marinara. "All you have to do is hear me out."

All I have to do is focus on the fact that this is Jackson, and that I have to hear him out.

What about all I _want_ to do?

"The sauce will burn."

"I turned the stove off."

"Oh."

"Can you maybe stop staring at the couch?"

"Nope."

"Can you meet me halfway here?"

"As in, on the couch question, or…"

"As in, halfway between me and you, near the couch you won't stop staring at."

"I can do that."

"Okay then."

He moves, I don't. I drop my purse. I drop my jacket. I drop my keys (the hook is _right there_, but that doesn't really feel relevant _right now_), and only then do I walk forward until the toes of my thirty percent off pumps are only a few inches away from the toes of his overly expensive sneakers. He sighs. I feel it fan out across my collarbone, and I know from the angle that he's watching me, like he always does, keeping tabs on my mood and my colour and my crazy. I man up, and I look up, and there he is: he's Jackson Avery, and he's been there all along. He looks at me like no one else looks at me, not ever, and when he's certain I'm not going to bolt, he reaches around and tugs on my ponytail like no one else ever does, not ever. That's a him thing.

That's an us thing.

"You have a choice." His throat contracts as he swallows. "I mean, you have a load of choices, like going backpacking around Asia or becoming a country singer, but for the sake of making sense, you have the one choice, okay?"

"I have a choice," I repeat.

He nods.

"Jackson?"

"Mmmm?"

"What's my choice?"

"Right. The speech."

"Can I help with the speech, or…"

"No, it's a…yeah, you can help me."

I don't even see it coming.

He tilts his head down and my chin up and kisses me, kisses like I wanted him to kiss me two nights ago, because he loved me, and the night before, because I missed him, and every night before that. I missed this. I missed pressure and texture and tongue and being crushed up against him, and his fingers in my hair, and tracing the angles in his face like I'm reading a map, and the way he tastes, and the way he smells, and hot-cold-happy shiver that goes down my spine, because I know where this map leads. I think I'm myself when I'm kissing Jackson, which could be because I don't have enough breath to babble or enough brain cells free to panic. It could also be because he wants me, and I can feel it, and heat rushes through me like holy fire.

It doesn't take long, though, for me to start panicking. I start panicking maybe a nanosecond after I step in even closer, and he pulls back.

"What is it?" I am not panting. I _am_ not panting. "What did I do?"

"The speech," he groans.

I groan. I bang my forehead lightly against his chest, and then _I_ try to pull back, but he won't let me.

"It's easier if you can't make a break for it."

"Because that's not creepy, no sir…"

"April?"

"Yes?"

"Speech."

"Sorry."

Jackson clears his throat and straightens his back and does his best Greek god impression, which would be more impressive if his expression didn't give him away. He's smirking, and his lips are a little swollen. "You have a choice." Somebody began swaying from side-to-side while we were kissing, so that's what we're doing while he talks, dancing to imaginary music. "Because I have everything we need for a real date, and there are no murderers with Molotov cocktails outside your door, so we can do that if you want to."

"That sounds nice."

"But –"

"But?"

"I love you," he says, matter-of-factly, like it doesn't make my heart just about burst out of my chest (like he doesn't know it makes my heart just about burst out of my chest). "But that doesn't change the fact that we suck at this."

"We do," I agree. "We do suck at this – and I love you, and before you get any further into this speech, you should know you're the only guy I've ever loved, as in, would buy a Valentine's card for, would go to an angry rapper in unattractively baggy pants' concert for, and I would miss you if you were gone because you're you, not because I associate you with anyone else, living or dead, and I – stop smiling!"

"Nope." Not that I really want him to. "So, I figured we can either try dating and suck at it, or we can try something else we hopefully won't suck at."

"Like?"

He's still smiling, but the look in his eyes is fierce and bone-melting, and we've stopped dancing. "We can get to Lake Tahoe in thirteen hours."

Uh…

"Uh…why is Lake Tahoe important?"

"Lake Tahoe has fields," he informs me.

"And why are fields important?"

Jackson does several things before he answers. He clears his throat (again), looks at me, looks over my head, leans in like he's going to kiss me again, backs off, looks at me again, takes such a deep breath that I have to wonder if he's taken up scuba diving, then lets it out. "You told me once that you wanted to get married in a field, and have butterflies released when you kissed whoever you were marrying." His voice is quiet, measured. "What I'm telling you is that Lake Tahoe has fields, and that some of those fields are licensed for weddings, and I didn't have time to find out if any of those fields have butterflies, but we can get to Lake Tahoe in thirteen hours."

And the first thing that pops out of my mouth is, "How do you know that?"

_Take me now_, _God_. _Take me now_, _and end my suffering_, _because I don_'_t deserve to live another day on this beautiful planet if the first thing that pops out of my mouth when my best friend – who also happens to be my soulmate, thanks for that, it's otherwise worked out great so far – asks me to marry him_,_ only without the asking part_,_ is_,_ 'how do you know that_?'

"Do you want to get into that right now?"

_Any minute now_, _God_. _Any minute now is fine_.

"No…"

"No, you don't want to get into that right now, or no, you don't want to get married?"

It's not the question that gets me (not that he hasn't already got me, hook, line, and sinker, mind, body, and soul). What gets me is this exasperated flappy thing he does with his hands, like he can't believe I'm making him spell it out.

He can't believe I'm making him spell it out, and I can't believe he even has to ask.

I do this happy flappy thing with my hands, mirroring him the way he always mirrors me. "Yes." And just when you think it's not possible for us to get any closer together, we do. "Yes." And he lifts me off my feet, because Jackson Avery is a secret traditionalist and a closet romantic, and I love him for it, and for all that he is, all the salty and sweet and the getting up stupidly early and the owning a not at all environmentally friendly car, and he loves me for all that I am, even though I'm pretty sure he's still convinced I prowl the streets looking for trouble every night I don't spend with him. He holds me like I might break but like he wants to be the one to break me, and he kisses me like he'd prefer it if God didn't take me now, because he has plans, and his plans involve us getting married in a field with butterflies in Lake Tahoe in thirteen hours' time.

So that's kind of sort of what we do.


End file.
